grain orientation on basswood blocks

[Don Harris]

How critical is it to have vertical grain at the neck and tail block using basswood? The only basswood I could find was diminsioned in a way that to get the grain near vertical for the neck block I had to cut it up and glue it back together. I ended up using doug fir for the tail block to avoid the hassle, plus I thought that it would be stronger for the endpin. Was that a good call? -don

[arnoldschnitzer]

Vertical or slightly off from vertical is typically what is used. Jeff Bollbach recently told me it is traditional to use endblock and neckblock wood with the grain at a slant of 30 degrees or so, which is less likely to split. I doubt it makes much difference with basswood, which is not prone to splitting. Doug Fir is another story, though at the thickness you have in the tailblock, will probably work just fine.

[Matthew Tucker]

i'd ay its more critical to get the blocks free from runout so when you split them off once off the mold, they don't split somewhere you don't want them to!