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Forest Concession
In late 1999 Timbre Tonewood Ltd. was awarded a Timber Sale Licence by the British Columbia Ministry of Forests. This forest Licence provides the company the unique ability to source tonewood quality logs from its own standing timber reserves. The timber Licence also gives the company and its customers a high assurance of consistent quality and consistent supply as the company can access its own tonewood and leverage consistent supply of high quality tonewood logs by offering other major suppliers non tonewood quality tonewood logs.
Timbre Tonewood's management has 24 years of experience in salvaging of cedar waste wood and other special forest products in the forests of British Columbia. This background in a wide range of helicopter recovery scenarios enables the company to rightly claim a unique position in the tonewood manufacturing industry.
The company encourages "best practices" in timber harvesting, and continues this ethic in its manufacturing operations. We are working to provide certification for our guitar tops in particular.
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Primary break down and sawing
All the soundboards manufactured by Timbre Tonewood are sawn from split billets. This traditional technique is essential to limit “grain runout” which occurs when the saw-line cuts across the natural grain in the wood. Only by splitting the wood can the true direction of the wood be revealed.
The billets can be aligned in our sawing process so the grain of the wood runs parallel to the face of the soundboard. In this way the inherent longitude strength of the wood is captured, maximizing the tonal quality of the soundboard. The consequence of cutting across the grain or producing soundboards from twisted logs is the boards will have less longitudinal strength and resilience producing a lower quality sound. In addition the two sides of the guitar will have a distinct “light” and “dark” side. This is because the fibers are running diagonal through the two halves of the soundboard in opposite directions. The effect is similar to two strips of the same rug laying side by side with the pile running in opposite directions. A manufacturer that resaws soundboards from sawn lumber can not achieve the quality of a producer sawing split billets.
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Secondary Milling
All soundboards produced at Timbre Tonewood, regardless of grade, are edge trimmed with a lazer guided band saw. This exacting process establishes the glue-up edges of the book matched pair. The lazer guide enables the trim center operator to cut the glue-up edge so that the edge runs parallel to the grain at the edge of the board. This extra step of manufacturing undertaken at our factory means that once the edges are joined the glue-up line in the center of the guitar will not be noticeable.
 
 
After the soundboards are cut they enter the drying process. This process begins by air drying the boards at room temperature for approximately 48 hours. The air drying will lower the moisture content in Sitka and Engelmann spruce to about 14%. A 14% moisture content is achieved in Cedar after 3 to 4 days.
 
Once the boards are at 14% moisture content they enter a low heat (32 degrees Celsius) dehumidification dry kiln. The drying process is completed in the dry kiln when the boards are dried to 10% plus or minus 2%. This moisture content assures that the wood is stable and will not stain in extended storage. The moisture content of 10% is not intended to be the final drying. Each manufacturer is expected to complete the drying process to best suit their own manufacturing requirements.
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Grading is a very critical step in the production of soundboards. Timbre Tonewood places great importance on grading. In the case of a larger manufacturer it is vital that the soundboards received by the factory are of consistent quality from one delivery to another. We at Timbre Tonewood recognize that the success of the guitar in the market place, to a great extent, depends on the consistency of the material in the guitars and that each soundboard delivered must be consistent with each of its customer’s requirements. Achieving this consistency will advance our customers business and will insure future business for our company.
In the case of the small custom builder who consumes a small number of soundboards yet demands the highest quality and the closest attention to grading criteria, Timbre Tonewood offers the highest level of assurance that your requirements will be met.
 
We can make the claim for two reasons:
Firstly we produce 400,000 soundboards a year. From this huge production of soundboards we will select the highest grades and reserve them for small builders requiring the highest quality soundboards and/or those requiring soundboards with special features.
The second reason to expect consistency from Timbre Tonewood is that our graders grade to established standards that do not change from one log or load of logs to the next.
Small producers of soundboards, resellers and less expert graders often fall victim to “batch grading”. This occurs when the best wood in a specific log is graded as the highest grade ie: AAA and the lower grades are graded relative to highest grade from each log without established unchanging standard and grading expertise to assure the standard is uniformly applied. Quality will rise and fall from shipment to shipment.
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We are a supplier
of
high quality woods on a wholesale level. With quality standards at their highest, you can be
assured that the quality you have come to expect will always remain
consistent.
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Timbre Tonewood
P.O. Box 205
Nanoose Bay, BC
Canada
V9P 9J9
Tel: 250 468-0255
Fax: 250 468-0245 |
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