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Click on any of the thumbnail pictures to see it in full size!
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We travel weekly in our own truck to the southern regions of the United States, procuring the very best American Hickory that is available. The wood is precut into 1" squares and stacked on pallets.
When the wood is cut from the tree, moisture makes up 50% of the weight of each square. After a tree is cut, it begins to adapt to the moisture levels around it. As the wood loses moisture, it contracts & hardens. |
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The Vic Firth truck at our production facilities in Newport, Maine. Click to see a full sized picture! |
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Once the wood squares arrive in Maine, they spend 2 weeks in the Vic Firth kilns, enabling us to extract the moisture to levels that comply with the strict standards of the furniture industry. This standard is also the optimum moisture content level to create drumsticks, because of its stability to the environment surrounding it. |
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Click to see the wood squares stacked inside the Vic Firth kilns. |
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Most stick manufacturers do not kiln-dry their own squares - instead making them from dowels that are precut. Sticks made from dowels with a high moisture content are prone to warpage because the wood continues to adjust to environmental conditions after the stick reaches the marketplace. |
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Click to see a full sized picture of the wood stacked inside a kiln |
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More pictures:
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Discarded dowels & excess sawdust are used to fire the furnace and heat our production facilities. |
Vic Firth's furnace |
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Skids of wood squares in receiving | |
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