Frequently asked questions

Do you ship to other counties apart from the United Kingdom?

Yes we will to anywhere in the European Union. For a standard charge on most items.

We will also ship to Canada, U.S.A, Australia, and most other western countries.

We will ship to China and Japan and some other Asian countries also.

There are some places we can’t ship so always send us an email (tonewoodsupplies@gmail.com / fingermoel@mac.com) if your not sure.

Please contact us for shipping quotes.

How much is shipping and will I have to pay duty?

The cost of shipping depends on the size of the package and where you are based.

I try to keep shipping as low as poss and like to think my prices are pretty cheap.

I do not make money on shipping what I charge is what I pay.

If you are in the E.U. you won’t pay import duties but if you are outside the E.U. you will.

This amount will vary from country to country and charges will be your responsibility.

I will ship wood as craft wood where possible to avoid import duties.

Do you accept returns?

Yes, but the wood must not be worked in any way.

It is your responsibility to check the wood as it arrives for damage and suitability.

If it is not suitable or damaged we will exchange, refund or give you a credit note.

All faulty items must be shipped back to us at the buyer’s expense.

If something is not right for your project we will be happy to exchange it for you.

What if I can’t find what need on your site?

Our stock is constantly changing and we don’t as much time as we would to update the site.

If you can find what you need let us know, if don’t have it in stock we will do our best to get it for you.

I need to buy in bulk, do you do wholesale?

Yes we can offer bulk discounts on most items.

If we don’t have the items in stock we can do a custom wholesale order.

I am a working luthier can I get a discount?

We can give you small discounts on quantity purchases such as in batches of 5,10,and upwards.

Let us know what you need and we will see what we can do get the price down for you.

We understand your need to keep costs low in this trade so we will do our best to help.

How do I pay for my items?

We will shortly be providing a shopping cart and checkout facility on this website, in the meantime ...

You can pay by credit card, cash, bank transfer, and paypal.

You can do this by contacting us by phone (07982 444 295) or email (tonewoodsupplies@gmail.com / fingermoel@mac.com) and we will give you further instructions.

Can I visit you in person to hand select my wood?

Yes, please phone Joel on 07982 444 295 to arrange an appointment.

Tonewood grading

All woods are graded differently so I have decided to stick to a four tier grading process of A, AA, AAA, and master grade.

A grade in tops will be usable tops but will have defects such as run out or short grain both to the face edge and the jointing edge, curl or knot shadows, pitch pockets, and wide grain, and may be up to 10 degrees of quarter (hopefully not all on one piece).

A grade in back and side sets will vary according the wood but will usually denote slab sawn sets (excluding premium woods like Madagascan rosewood and species that don’t grow to required widths for quarter sawing), knots in the template area wide grain and other defects. This is rare and I don’t usually have A grade sets unless a defect is discovered during cutting.

AA grade in tops will no more than 5 percent off quarter sawn may have a little curl or knot shadow in the template area, also mild run out or short grain, and some color striping or “character”, these tops usually display good medulary silking etc. These are factory grade sets and make very good guitars if you like something a little less homogenous.

AA in back and side sets are good quarter/rift (rift=45 degree grain) sawn sets that have some kind of mild defect such as pin knots not more than 10mm in diamater, wide grain, plain figure or other such minor defects. This is a good grade to buy from for either professional luthiers of first time hobbyist’s.

AAA grade in tops is perfectly quarter sawn, no run out to the face or jointing edge, little color banding, nice medulary rays, and no defects in the template area. These tops are used by high end luthiers and are the best general quality that you can build with, very very good tops.

AAA grade in back and side sets is usually nice quarter sawn sets (with the exception of certain species), no defects in the template area, strieght grain and nice figure. These sets will be good quality high end sets perfect for building with.

Master grade, Master grade is a term I don’t like using because one persons idea of perfection is another person idea of rubbish and as such I will only use the term for outstanding rare pieces of wood which will be prices individually in most cases.

Master grade tops will that perfect one in 1000 top that is very very rarely seen and will be priced accordingly. They will have the same characteristics as a AAA top but will very strong medulary silking, complete homogeneous grain and color and will have that something that you just can’t describe. I won’t get many of these and can’t take back orders sorry.

Master grade back and side sets, This mainly applies to the premium and figured species but every now and then an outstanding piece will come along in the standard woods too. A master grade piece of wood will be perfect and will exhibit astounding figuring or colour. It will have all the quality’s of AAA but something more also again each piece will be priced individually on it own merits.

Grading the “premium” woods.

Some woods I class as premium woods (see list below) and are either to rare or don’t grow with a large enough diameter to yield quarter sawn boards. As such we have to rethink our grading structure when grading woods. Woods like Madagascan rosewood are graded on figure, color, and lack of defects. Also I will make sure that the jointing edge is on the quarter with most sets going quarter / flat / quarter or quarter / flat. This is only done with stable woods and the sides will be quarter sawn wherever possable. This is the same with Rio these days as it is so hard to come by quarter sawn sets are available but are priced at a premium.

I will try to include the grading process of each wood with the item description.

Ebony grading.

I have six grades for my Indian ebony. This is a standard four tier quality scale and one sub grade; the grades are striped grade, curly grade, C grade, B grade, A grade and master grade. All the fingerboards are quarter sawn so they are graded on cosmetics.

Striped grade are priced at £6.50 and feature very dark wood with strong contrasting blond brown stripes very similar to macassar ebony. These are very pretty and make fine fingerboards, They can be dyed to make a completely black fingerboard.

Curly grade can come from any of the grades and are priced from the grade they came from so a curly c grade would be £6.50 etc.this grade exhibits nice wide curl that is common in ebony across the fingerboard. This can look visualy stunning but can cause problems with the fingerboard shrinking back from the frets. This can be countered by using a very small spot of cynoacrolate to secure your frets.

C grade (£6.50) has grey or brown striping that is irregular and noticeable similar to the African ebony striping. This does fade after scraping and in service but is cosmetically inferior. These fingerboards are prime candidates for dying.

B grade (£8.50) will be very good black fingerboards but will have one or two light stripes. These are much blacker and nicer than African ebony of the same grade I think you will be surprised with quality. This grade is almost completely black when in service.

A grade (£12.50) very black wood may have a very light grain lines but will be completely black in service very good quality fine grained wood.

Master grade. (£14.50) I don’t have many of these but they are outstanding and well worth the price. blacker than blackest African ebony second only to Madagascan ebony, these boards will be so black black that you wont even be able to make out the grain. Absolute stunning pieces of the black stuff this is what gives ebony its reputation for unsurpassed beauty.

Grading Neck Blanks

Neck blanks are graded straightness of grain, run out and how well quarter sawn it is.

I have two grades for neck blanks (AA and AAA ) and two category’s (slab and quarter)

AA grade.

This grade is good quality necks but may have some mild run out either to the face edge or both. With quarter sawn necks the grain can be as much 30 degrees off quarter otherwise will be defect free. This is most common grade as it is hard to cut necks with completely no run out and perfectly on quarter all the time.

AAA grade.

This grade has almost no run out and will be with 20 degree on quarter but usually perfectly qaurtered. No defects flat and straight, just all round nice neck blocks. I also will supply either slab or quarter sawn neck. I have far more quartered necks in sock but if you need a slab sawn neck the I can usually oblige.

This goes for all species

Macassar Ebony

Macassar Ebony is graded on the amount of figure it has. In the case of macassar the figure presents itself in blond streaks. As a general rule the more blond color in the board the higher the grade. I have heard one dealer describe the higher grade boards as wide grained and full of run out, This in entirely irrelevant in maccasar ebony as it is such a stable wood. The best macassar ebony has wonderful variegation in its figure and this is what gives it is beauty.

I have three grades with macassar AA, AAA, and Master. Sometimes I come across a curly board and this will be priced individually according to its grade and figure.

AA good quarter sawn stock, fine grained but may have a bit of wonky grain usually doesn’t have the as much paler materiel, may have a pin knot or two. This is nice stuff and makes superb fingerboards.

AAA nice straight-grained wood. With a medium amount of blond materiel, no defects, these look really nice when polished up.

Master grade, this stuff has allot of blond usually with fine black ink lines. It can vary to the other way around or something completely different but one thing will be for sure the figure will be all over the place. This is primo stuff and its hard for me to get you know master grade macassar when you see it.

Indian Rosewood

There are four grades for Indian rosewood, these have been established for many years now.

A grade is standard grade and has wider grain, uneven color, can run to rift sawn the edges and is not as rich in color. I really like this grade and think that you can get some really interesting sets in this grade its also very reasonably priced.

AA is another good grade with the sets having real character. The sets are well-quartered still slightly wider grain and color variation across the set, and will have a richer color; this is my favorite grade I think sets from this grade make superb guitars from and aesthetic point of view

AAA sets from this grade have nice straight even grain and a nice rich color. This is the most popular grade and produces very traditional looking guitars.

Master grade, almost completely homogenous grain and very rich purplish color. Very traditional and very nice, No defects whatsoever.

Fingerboards

As usual three grades are used for fingerboard, AA, AAA, and Master. All grades are quarter/rift sawn.

A grade may have slightly wavy grain a pin knot or two (only stable ones) or may have low figure in the case of macassar ebony etc. These are very usable and nice fingerboards.

AAA Grade will be nice quarter/rift sawn stock with no defects except maybe one small knot shadow or slight run out to the edge (this will usually run with the taper).

Master grade, these fingerboards are quarter sawn with straight grain and no effects and will have some quality that makes them stand out from the crowd such as figure or just a really perfect example of the species.

Sometimes in some species like cocobolo I get some fingerboards with outstanding figure but some defect that puts them in a low grade. As such these unique pieces will be priced individually.

Bridge blanks

Only two grades for bridge blanks AA and AAA .

AA will be nice clear wood but may be off quarter or have wavy grain or some other such defect.

AAA Bridges will be quarter sawn clear wood no defects no curl or figure (other than grain figure)

I usually cut my blanks big enough to be used for either steel strings or acoustics but on occasion this is not possible. In these cases I will mark them steel string size or classical.

Figured woods

Some species such as koa, Tasmanian Blackwood, maple etc are graded on there figure rather than there structural qualities.

Usually this applies to what we call curl type figure. These types of figure can come in many different forms with the most common ones being fiddle back curl and quilt.

With maple the best quilted figure is best seen on the slab sawn face as such quilted maple will be slab sawn (this is also true for Birdseye maple)

Fiddle back curl is best seen on the quarter sawn face so curly maple will usually be quarter sawn. This is also true for koa and TAS Blackwood.

I have three four figure grades, low, medium, high, and special grade.

Low figure will be mild mottle or curl this can be hard to see sometimes on the sanded face but will “pop” once you plane and get your first coat of finish on.

Medium figure will be nice curl or other type of figure and will be seen quite clearly on the sanded face but gain this will really “pop” once a finish is applied.

High grade is high even curl etc with good depth. This type of figure will be immediately noticeable and quite spectacular.

Special grade, this grade is that rare board with absolutely outstanding figure. I don’t see many of these and won’t often be offering it.

All grades will command a premium of some kind with the rare figured woods such as bubinga , mahogany, sapelee etc commanding the highest prices.

Figure is very hard to photo, so sometimes the back sets will be wiped with naptha for the picks. This will in no way damage the wood.

Bearclaw spruce

I grade my bearclaw spruce on mainly on figure but this only goes for the highly figured tops.

For example alpine spruce tops with a mild spot of bearclaw will be ignored and the top will be graded by normal standards (although master grade alpine will have little or no bearclaw).

The highly figured tops usually are found in Sitka spruce and as they have a grade of there own.

It is common to have a very very strong figure top on a top that has strong color banding that would make it a normal AA this top would be graded AA/AAA for an AA top with AAA figure.

The grading for bearclaw is as follows

AA . Medium to strong bearclaw but not very symmetrical.

AAA . Heavy figure all over the top usually with symmetrical areas.

Master, these are rare and are what really gives bearclaw its name. Perfectly symmetrical with jagged claw marks book matched on to the top. Hard to explain see below pic.

Rosewoods and other exotics

The rarer rosewoods and species such as zirocote are graded on grain figure.

For example Rio rosewood and zirocote will be up graded if it has heavy eye catching “watermark” or “spider webbing” figure etc.

Species such as cocobolo will often exhibit similar types of figure and will be up graded accordingly.

Please note that my grading procedures are subject to change at any time.