Another Tonewood Score

I'm usually very wary of Friday 13th's and don't do work that can "go badly wrong" on those days. Instead last Friday I headed up to the High Wycombe Axminster store to re-stock on various abrasives. Walking in the door I was met with a pile of wooden planks of various species with handwritten prices on them - a sale Axminster are known for supplying wooden turning blanks but I've never seen bigger wood there so was surprised - I was also magnetically drawn to two planks of spalted beech:



The spalting was very stable with no "spongy" areas so I bought the planks. Back at "De Faoite Central" I looked over the wood which was quatersawn over a large area and drifting to slight rift at the highly figured areas and estimated that I could get two guitar sets of back, sides and neck, and two piccolo guitar/mandolin back and side sets. Worst case if the the cut wood wasn't stable then there were lots of head-plates, rosettes etc. So yesterday it was off to the bandsaw to see just what lay inside. The cut wood seems very dimensionally stable and the spalting is very hard and stable in the areas that will be "guitar". It also taps like - wood So here's the two guitar back, sides and neck sets:





Here's the two piccolo guitar/mandolin back and side sets:





I'll see how the cut wood settles over the coming months but I'm currently a happy bunny.