Soundboard wood

Now the single most expensive part of the project is at hand: my soundboard wood, which I ordered earlier this month from Germany, finally arrived the other day. I had to go out to the airport, get the paperwork for clearance through Canada Customs myself (no brokers were used, but fortunately the transaction was quick and painless), then take the clearance forms to the shipping company's warehouse, have them release the package to me and get it home in my van. The package was an 8-foot long sandwich of spruce boards between two half-sheets of plywood. It just barely made it into the van.

I told the wood suppliers what I was aiming to make, so they provided boards in various lengths to suit my needs. I stacked and stickered everything to help it dry out, as the boards had been steamed for a while to remove stresses after they were resawn. Here are the two piles in the basement workshop:




This is alpine spruce from Europe. Trees that grow at high altitude have tightly-spaced growth rings because the growing season is short and cold. For use in soundboards, the wood should ideally be quarter-sawn. I received it about 1/4" thick; it will be planed down to about 1/8", glued up and then selectively thinned by hand-planing.

Having such expensive materials to deal with—the total cost, including shipping, duty and taxes must be at least $750 Canadian—makes me a bit nervous. In addition, there is no substitute for prior experience in making a soundboard, which I admit is a liability for me. Thinning down a soundboard is not a mathematical exercise: since no two pieces of wood are alike, the degree of thinning suitable for one soundboard is unlikely to match any other soundboard. You must work your materials in a way that accounts for the idiosyncrasies of what you have at hand, and that will vary from board to board. Still, I have to get my feet wet with this eventually, and I will give it my very best shot.

For now, everything will have to dry out for a while. Cold, dry weather is approaching, and I have the boards stacked up in the furnace room, which is warm and dry, to help things along.