Making a body with tree rings on the face. Could that work?

[Fynn]

I'm planning on building a new bass, and fixing my first one, and was going through some ideas in my head. I have always loved the way tree rings look, and was thinking of how I could make this work for a body. One part of that thought process was about structual integrity. It would be cool to make and shape a whole body out of one big disc, but finding an intact disc is probably not cheap, and it's probably not the most rigid thing in the world. I saw cutting boards before, where the builder would simply cut a bunch of cubes out of a disc, orient them in different directions, and create a surface that has the beautiful lines of a tree ring, but with a lot more effort and gluing. I could probably make something like that out of thick pieces of lumber.
Another part would be the type of wood. I like the classic look of oak, but I feel like oak might be a bit heavy, plus I've yet to see a whole oak disc that doesn't have huge cracks. I did a little digging online, and I couldn't find an instrument made like that. I did find a bunch of cutting boards, but they're generally either made out of multiple pieces, or they're made from a wood that I definitely can't get here. Some of the options in terms of wood would be: oak, beech, ash, european walnut, yellow poplar, or pine. But all those are processed lumber, not whole discs.

I would like to avoid buying a disc with cracks and filling that with epoxy, because I don't really like the look of that. I guess structure ain't much of an issue, if I make a sort of veneer out of a disc, and not have it be the whole thickness of the body.

I'm mostly looking for tips, insights, or maybe if someone has already done this before. I don't even know how I would go about googling something like this, because tree ring guitar doesn't exactly give me any results.

 

[T_Bone_TL]

See here. I think there was another thread on the same subject that had pictures of doing it with an end-grain veneer, but I can't find that one right now. I think Matt (below, this is an edit) is correct about the attribution, but search is failing me.

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/how-to-stabilize-wood-for-body.1339333/

Looking for a veneer will certainly be the less troublesome route if you can find one - end-grain veneer cuts are not all that common. Also lets you not worry about the weight of the wood you want to see, as there will be very little of it and the core can be as light as you like.

To get an un-checked (check being the polite term for shrinkage crack in wood) entire round, you need a very fresh log and a vat of glop (or water, then replace the water with glop) to keep it from checking, which it will do rather quickly as it starts drying.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Someone here built a body recently, I want to say a Tele body with a top like that. I took a look back through but didn’t see the thread right away. @Flying B maybe?

A thinner top would probably be the way to go on that. You could chamber the main body for reduced weight and it would help with any potential stability issues. Also, you could jump on the bandwagon and fill any cracks or splits with metalflake resin! (Mostly joking on that one)

 

[Flying B]

Thread 'Not another Tele build! Yawn' https://www.talkbass.com/threads/not-another-tele-build-yawn.1631655/

 

[Fynn]

Thread 'Not another Tele build! Yawn' https://www.talkbass.com/threads/not-another-tele-build-yawn.1631655/

Ah, that's a good looking one. But I would probably go for something with a lighter color. I definitely like the aesthetic of it.

 

[Fynn]

See here. I think there was another thread on the same subject that had pictures of doing it with an end-grain veneer, but I can't find that one right now. I think Matt (below, this is an edit) is correct about the attribution, but search is failing me.

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/how-to-stabilize-wood-for-body.1339333/

Looking for a veneer will certainly be the less troublesome route if you can find one - end-grain veneer cuts are not all that common. Also lets you not worry about the weight of the wood you want to see, as there will be very little of it and the core can be as light as you like.

To get an un-checked (check being the polite term for crack in wood) entire round, you need a very fresh log and a vat of glop (or water, then replace the water with glop) to keep it from checking, which it will do rather quickly as it starts drying.

I do know of a guy here that has a small sawmill. So I think I could get a fresh disc that way. Though I've read through that link a bit, and it all seems like a huge hassle honestly. Maybe a relief cut is the way to go. Maybe even cut a disc in half and make two wings out of it, simply adding a center piece made of side grain wood?

 

[Flying B]

The place i sourced the veneer from (here in the UK)also had sycamore which would be much lighter, and I think oak.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

I agree with the others; it can be done, but it's a fair amount of work. The basic approach is to make the rings as a decorative top on a body. Don't try to shape an end-grain disk from a log into a whole body. That's not going to go well.

Start with a body blank of some good stable wood like alder, with the grain going in the normal direction. Plane it down to 1/4" thinner than your final body thickness. Get a disc off a log, full rings, rough chainsaw cut, around 1" thick. Set the disc up in a fixture and router plane one surface to flat. Epoxy that surface down to the body blank. Bandsaw the excess off around the perimeter. Stand it up on edge and bandsaw off most of the rings, bringing them down to maybe 3/8" thick. Router plane the surface to bring it down to 1/4", flat. Then soak it with CPES epoxy, followed by a coat or two of West Systems epoxy. Then, you can go ahead and do all the routing and make the body from the blank.

That's the process we use to put on a decorative wood top of a fragile, unstable wood. Like burls and...end grain rings. The overall idea is to epoxy a thicker piece onto the core of the body, to stabilize it. Then trim it down to the thin top while it's glued on. And then saturate it with epoxy to lock it together permanently.

 

[lark_z]

Woodturner here with some experience with raw wood prep for bowls etc. The tree, when sectioned, is very likely to split one or more places radially right through the pith. We deal with this in turning by ripping the blank the long way right through the pith, then sealing the ends and storing the half logs for approximately one month per inch of thickness. Then go through and do the best with what nature gives you.

If I was doing this, I would get the FRESH CUT tree trunk, then immediately cut it into cross-sectional circles maybe 1" thick. Then seal these completely with commercial wood sealer or Elmer's glue. Store covered outside somewhere for a couple of months. Then plane or sand off the sealer on the good-looking intact circles and laminate this to something else to provide structural integrity like @Bruce Johnson suggests.

Really cool idea, keep us posted.

 

[Flying B]

I do know of a guy here that has a small sawmill. So I think I could get a fresh disc that way. Though I've read through that link a bit, and it all seems like a huge hassle honestly. Maybe a relief cut is the way to go. Maybe even cut a disc in half and make two wings out of it, simply adding a center piece made of side grain wood?

Honestly, I personally would not attempt anything structural with end grain wood like that, it won't be stable, is likely to crack as it continues to dry, and seasonal movement will mess with your scale length etc. A thin veneer is the way to go

 

[Flying B]

storing the half logs for approximately one month per inch of thickness

Common practice is one year per inch thickness for air drying fresh cut timber

 

[Fynn]

Honestly, I personally would not attempt anything structural with end grain wood like that, it won't be stable, is likely to crack as it continues to dry, and seasonal movement will mess with your scale length etc. A thin veneer is the way to go

Yeah, I'm sort of coming to that conclusion too. Though I'm still wondering how thin of a veneer I would have to do. I would like to make it as thick as possible, because I don't really like how an actual veneer looks from the side.
I've also not given up the idea of making a design where I use many little end grain blocks, all oriented differently.
Something like this:

I do like the look of this too, but it's definitely a different look. I could probalby simply buy a long piece of thick lumber, and cut it into slices, which I then cut into cubes and arrange to my liking. Lots of glue, but if I do a proper glue up, it should be structurally fine, right?
There's many ways to skin this cat and I'm thinking a lot

 

[Fynn]

Woodturner here with some experience with raw wood prep for bowls etc. The tree, when sectioned, is very likely to split one or more places radially right through the pith. We deal with this in turning by ripping the blank the long way right through the pith, then sealing the ends and storing the half logs for approximately one month per inch of thickness. Then go through and do the best with what nature gives you.

If I was doing this, I would get the FRESH CUT tree trunk, then immediately cut it into cross-sectional circles maybe 1" thick. Then seal these completely with commercial wood sealer or Elmer's glue. Store covered outside somewhere for a couple of months. Then plane or sand off the sealer on the good-looking intact circles and laminate this to something else to provide structural integrity like @Bruce Johnson suggests.

Really cool idea, keep us posted.

This would be a project over months, or potentially years then. Maybe I'll do this, but make a bass a different easier way, and then come back to the wood when I'm ready for the next project. Though I don't quite understand why you would want a freshly cut tree trunk? What's the difference between a tree trunk that sits for a while, and one that is freshly cut? Is there more likelyhood for an older one to split after cutting it into discs?
I don't know if I mentioned this before, but there is this small sawmill near me. I could ask the guy running it for when a fresh tree trunk comes in, and then have him cut it into multiple pieces for storage.

 

[T_Bone_TL]

You can have a structural core, a veneer face (and optional back), and a not particularly structural rim to hide the edge of the veneer and core and even support the illusion that's it's a slice of log.

An older tree trunk that has been cut for a while (and "a while" may not be very long at all - I've seen it happen within the same day they were cut) will have already checked (cracked from shrinkage). It will get worse as it dries out more, but the cracks will have started forming.

 

[Flying B]

Yeah, I'm sort of coming to that conclusion too. Though I'm still wondering how thin of a veneer I would have to do. I would like to make it as thick as possible, because I don't really like how an actual veneer looks from the side.
I've also not given up the idea of making a design where I use many little end grain blocks, all oriented differently.
Something like this:
View attachment 7073332

I do like the look of this too, but it's definitely a different look. I could probalby simply buy a long piece of thick lumber, and cut it into slices, which I then cut into cubes and arrange to my liking. Lots of glue, but if I do a proper glue up, it should be structurally fine, right?
There's many ways to skin this cat and I'm thinking a lot

Still a no from me! Wood expands and contracts across the grain not along it, so a body made from that would be a nightmare to keep in tune and intonate.

 

[Fynn]

Still a no from me! Wood expands and contracts across the grain not along it, so a body made from that would be a nightmare to keep in tune and intonate.

Well, if that would be really such a big issue, then I could simply make a solid center piece and have the sides made out of end grain pieces. That's at least more or less gonna assure tuning stability

 

[Fynn]

You can have a structural core, a veneer face (and optional back), and a not particularly structural rim to hide the edge of the veneer and core and even support the illusion that's it's a slice of log.

An older tree trunk that has been cut for a while (and "a while" may not be very long at all - I've seen it happen within the same day they were cut) will have already checked (cracked from shrinkage). It will get worse as it dries out more, but the cracks will have started forming.

And those cracks could be prevented by cutting the tree trunk immediately? I guess it also depends on how big those cracks are. I am thinking about epoxy now too, even though I said I didn't want that...

 

[Flying B]

Give it a go! What's the worst that can happen?

 

[T_Bone_TL]

You have to cut the round and then keep it wet, either in water or in PEG-1000 or perhaps in some newer product now. PEG-1000 (with time and heat) eventually replaces the water in the cells and keeps it from shrinking and cracking. There might well be newer products that do the same thing now, as that's 50+ year old technology. Or it might work well enough for the cases that people want to do that that nothing else has replaced it. Could be one of the thin, penetrating, rot-fix type epoxies will work similarly? I don't know.

Epoxying the wet, green, thin slice to plywood will likely at least limit cracking - I don't know if it will really eliminate it, but it might make it small enough to not bother you. Or you make the radial cut on your slice and dry it further with less cracking, then re-work that slice to get the result you want, visually. The epoxy in question would need to work on wet wood. You can also make some experiments to see how much drying it takes before you get cracks of a scale that bothers you.