Can a standard sized body blank be resawn?

[andy007]

I have a heavy ash body blank (14x20) that I want to use to build a hollow body project. Assuming I can find some place to get it resawn, is it unreasonable to think I can get 1/4" sliced off the top to use for the top cap and then hog out the hollow areas on the remaining piece? Not sure how wide a piece of wood can be resawn. If this can't be done I will plane the body blank down some and use a top cap piece from a separate piece of wood. As I write this and think about it, seems like the latter is the simplest way to go. I'd still like to know if a 14" body blank can be resawn.

 

[CB91710]

It's not impossible, but not a lot of shops have the capacity for it, and if it's already been rough shaped, that adds to the complexity.
Then there's the issue that after resawing, it's going to have to be planed, so you're probably going to drop another 1/4" (or more) from the total thickness, you'd probably want to cut 3/8 for the top and then take 1/8 off of each side.

Really would be better off making a fresh cap. That'll give you complete control over the final thickness, and even allow for a carved top if you'd like.

 

[andy007]

OK that's the plan then, different piece of wood for the top. I learned something.

 

[akwusmc]

As Rich says, the biggest obstacle is finding someone with a big enough bandsaw. That said, if you did find someone with the proper equipment for resawing I don't think you'd lose much more than an additional 1/8" (and probably less) in cleaning up the cut. A proper resawing setup will include a resawing blade; modern resawing blades will leave a finish requiring minimal clean up.

Resawing the blank by hand is an option and is do-able with shop-made equipment. Search Youtube for 'resawing by hand' and you'll find enough footage to last you a couple of hours at least. Here's a guy whose shop is 'unplugged' ...

And here's an amateur who cobbled the saws together using shop scraps and an old bandsaw blade.

And if you're brave, you can use a tablesaw as the 'kerfing' plane, finish the cut with a hand saw, and clean it up with a well-tuned #5 plane.

Where there's a will, there's a way; if your project requires that you use a single piece of wood it can be done!

 

[pshupe]

I'm no professional but have a band saw that can re-saw 14" at it's maximum. The kerf on my saw blade is 0.041" about 1mm. Since you haven't mention thickness of your body blank, I will assume 1 3/4"? You should be able to easily re-saw that blank and hollow out the body. Even if you lose 1/4", you'll still be at 1 1/2" thickness which IMO is perfectly fine.

You have lots of options here. Think outside the box. You could use a 1/4" plate of any other type of wood for either a back plate or a top. You could use a two piece for a back of a different type of wood. A contrasting piece would look nice. Black walnut would look great. You could do a figured wood bookmatched top with binding. As I said lots of options.

Here is a couple pics of a Tele thinline type build I did with white ash and walnut back place and walnut binding.


What style guitar are you building? my favorite guitars are a little thinner anyway.

Cheers Peter.

 

[cmjohnson]

Resawing done with precision can result in surprisingly little wastage. It's possible to lose under 1/8" of total thickness from the resaw cut to the finish sanding pass through the thickness sander, if everything is perfect. I've never gotten very close to that figure but I don't resaw very often.