bowed neck wood - useable?

axisus

I bought a cheap bit of wenge to have a go at making a neck some time ago. Once it showed up it became apparent as to why it was cheap - there is a bow in it - around 3mm in the centre. Is there any feasibility in planing it flat, or should I just write it off?

octatonic

Plane it flat, actually square it up. 

Then leave it for a couple of weeks and observe what happens to it. What sort of environment is it kept in?

 I bought a short mahogany board for £30 2 months ago and got six neck blanks out of it. 

I had to run it through the planer first, to get a facing edge, rip the board to 6 pieces, then square them all up.

It is normal for wood to arrive not perfectly square.

3mm is a bit more than what I usually see but it might be fine once you square it up.

WezV

was it a prepped blank  or do you have room to work with to try the above

wood is wood, and a bowed bit will always be more likely to bow again - so obviously it won't be as ideal as a perfectly straight bit  but its not worth scrapping it just yet, 

try planning it flat and leaving it to see if the bow reappears.  if it doesn't after a few weeks, good to go, if it does then its time to consider reinforcement, grain direction and everything else 

one of the simplest ways to deal with woods internal tensions it to laminate it.   if you had a 3"x1" blank you could slice your blank into 3 1x1" pieces and re-laminate them in a few different ways, either just flipping the centre section or rotating them all 90 degrees could work

there is also internal reinforcement to consider.  Carbon fibre bars and the like.   that would work great on a mahogany neck in the same condition but wenge is a very strong wood in its own right.   Also think about which way you would want the bow to reappear if it ever did.  is it better that it would pull the neck into a forward or back bow - are you using a 1 or 2 way truss rod, could you control it.  again i would point out wenge is a stiff wood and harder to control than a similar piece of mahogany

anyway, a little bit of bow can be dealt with 

axisus

Thanks both, I'll give it a whirl and see how it goes. My gut instinct was that it was a turkey, so nice to know that there may be hope!

octatonic

What environment are you keeping it in?

Do you have any humidity control?

axisus

octatonic said:

What environment are you keeping it in?

Do you have any humidity control?

It's in a loving home environment with a good support structure and sound parental guidance.

proper answer .......... In the dining room, under the sideboard with my other guitar bits. No humidity control, I can't even control the bloody thermostat as Mrs A keeps turning it up!

octatonic

That could be the problem then.

Until you get some finish on that instrument you are playing the guitar-wood-go-bendy lottery.

In future the first thing you do with guitar woods is take measurements, write them down and then observed the change over time.

I do this even with temperature and humidity control in the wood store.

Get yourself a hygrometer for measuring humidity too.

If the humidity doesn't stay between 45-60% then I'd really suggest getting a dehumidifier.

lateralus462

I wouldn't be worried about a 3mm bow in a piece as long as it's thick enough to be planed out. It is worth letting the board acclimatise for as long as possible in your workshop before using and also working with as soon as possible after it has been planed - it's wood and it does have the annoying tendency to move and the longer it's left after machining the more chance there is of it moving!!

Ultimately as long as it's been dried properly and doesn't have any weird grain issues it should be fine.

This is a good article on wood movement http://www.popularwoodworking.com/article/why-wood-warps

Springywheel

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