Roasting maple for stabilizing

[fitzo]

Interestingly, the necks had Stainless Steel frets, which I also didn't like. The Strat in my avatar is my #1. It's 21 years old, and is so well worn, it fits my hand like a glove. I compare everything to that neck. None have come close. The Les Paul I'm building is the closest thing to it as I shaped the neck myself.

I understand about the neck that fits like a glove. And the guitar-that-will-never-leave.

Anderson puts stainless frets on everything nowadays. I have gotten used to them, but they do feel different. The worst part about them comes if you get fret sprout. While I do most all my own work, stainless fret stuff is the tech's. He charges me 50% more for stainless. He hates 'em. I laughed and said, "No problem. Why do you think I brought it in for you?"

Hope that Lester turns out another lifetime guit-fiddle, Ron. I immediately liked that color.

 

[D-weaver]

you need to put something sacrificial with the wood in a sealed container (it needs to be sealed...or really close to completely sealed) and the temperature needs to go to something like 190C (if you google, you'll find a document where a lab or gov agency or something baked maple in temperature increments and then measured its reactivity afterward. There's a very narrow range where it suddenly becomes useful and below that, you just made the wood really hot without changing its properties much).

I've heard people mention putting some thin shavings in the container with the maple so that they'll consume the oxygen before the wood gets hot - that's not a bad idea (it'll stink).

If you do it right, you're going to be left with really hard musical and extremely dry wood, and it will also splinter easily. very easily. The guitar necks that I've gotten that are baked (properly) have a sort of grayish brown cast to them and they smell like smoke when you saw or plane them. They have been steamed a little bit or reintroduced to moisture intentionally right after baking to eliminate some of the splintery behavior.

The obvious change in the wood is that you're cooking the volatiles out, and I'd guess the critical need for the temp to be above a certain level is that they bake out at a certain point and not before it. It should make very nice hard good polishing knife handles. But maybe slightly more split prone.

https://imgur.com/UQieZzA

When I make guitar necks, I cut them out with hand tools and then mortise the truss rod groove with hand tools - the baked stuff was really splintery. Not like I think it'll have problems, but the wood properties have been changed a lot, much like old douglas fir and old ash gets really harsh latewood, and can be very hard/dry/splintery and the punishing latewood isn't just dry, it's changed (more shattery).

 

[D-weaver]

Anderson puts stainless frets on everything nowadays. I have gotten used to them, but they do feel different.

really greasy and slick. They do wear files out faster, but compared to tools or knives, they're not very hard. Just hard compared to nickel silver frets (which I like better).

I think I have two guitars with stainless frets now and they have a hard but greasy feel with the strings. Let's not even go into people talking about the sound dynamics! (that argument usually exists in a world where one can't adjust a mix ....even though they're playing an electric guitar. Using the volume and tone knobs is a wonderful thing that people seem to have forgotten. In the 90s in my teens, I played in a cover band and used only the amp's drive channel. "boost" was turning the volume knob all the way up, and while I may have liked a boost pedal, I didn't even know what they were.

I saw a video talking about angus young not that long ago and how his tech mentioned "yeah, he likes to manipulate the knobs while he's playing".

Lost art!

 

[FredyCro]

I got 27 blocks about 1.5x 1x 5.5 stabilized at K&G the first time I sent out wood to be stabilized. Worked out to $7 cdn per block all in. More recently I sent them about 120 pieces and it worked out to a bit under $6/block. I just find my wood in the forest while I am at work and toss it under the porch to dry. Cut it up into blocks when I need more and send them out for stabilizing.

There is some really nice blocks there!

 

[Randydb]

There is some really nice blocks there!

Thanks. I'm a principal at an environmental school where the kids are outside in the forest every day. Funny thing is when I get looking at a piece of wood in the bush the children start saying, "Don't go near Randy or he'll make us help him carry his log out of the bush!" We've hauled some pieces a long ways.

It always amazes me how some blocks don't catch my eye, but turn out to be wonderful handles. One of my students used the dark block on the bottom left of that picture and it is a beautiful and striking handle. It has this visual depth to the grain that is awesome.

I will post some pictures of the knives the students made this year in another thread soon.

 

[FredyCro]

Thanks. I'm a principal at an environmental school where the kids are outside in the forest every day. Funny thing is when I get looking at a piece of wood in the bush the children start saying, "Don't go near Randy or he'll make us help him carry his log out of the bush!" We've hauled some pieces a long ways.

It always amazes me how some blocks don't catch my eye, but turn out to be wonderful handles. One of my students used the dark block on the bottom left of that picture and it is a beautiful and striking handle. It has this visual depth to the grain that is awesome.

I will post some pictures of the knives the students made this year in another thread soon.

I guess the added benefit of the wood from forrest is that they will get some spalting going naturally. I already know the school and porch part, but the part about carrying the logs made me LOL looking forward to pics.

 

[DanF]

The torrified necks on the electrics is interesting. I live in the acoustic world where the soundboard (top) is torrified. Makes a HUGE difference, bake the lid and have instant aging instead of waiting 30-50 years for that “aged” sound. I had to put my torrified topped guitars down while I was healing, the vibration/harmonics was messing with my chest.

 

[fitzo]

The torrified necks on the electrics is interesting. I live in the acoustic world where the soundboard (top) is torrified. Makes a HUGE difference, bake the lid and have instant aging instead of waiting 30-50 years for that “aged” sound. I had to put my torrified topped guitars down while I was healing, the vibration/harmonics was messing with my chest.

I have an Anderson Tele-style with the roasted maple neck and a roasted pine body. My first pine body on a guitar, I am amazed at its resonance and sustain. I wonder now how much of that acoustic sustain is due to the torrefaction?

 

[iticam92]

So to the guys talking about the guitar necks- that is where I got this idea. I have a custom guitar neck made of roasted flame maple and as mentioned above, with weather, temp, and humidity changes, there is zero warping. I was hoping that would mean no swelling of a knife handle. I can just seal it with some tru oil or tung oil and all would be good.

How does that affect tuning? I’ve never heard this. I’m considering ordering a custom bass with a roasted neck from Fender. If that’s another benefit I’m in.

I would recommend go for it. I got mine from warmoth. Its the best neck I've ever played by far.

 

[marchone]

Thanks for that. Now that I’m done buying knives for awhile I’m turning my attention to music equipment again. I just had a 1969 Telecaster Bass refurbished and am looking at a new Jazz Bass by the end of the year.

 

[john april]

isnt the roasting the same principle as when caveman charred the ends of wood spears over coals to make the tip harder ?

 

[marchone]

isnt the roasting the same principle as when caveman charred the ends of wood spears over coals to make the tip harder ?

Those are two different techniques. Hardening a wooden spear tip by burning to achieve a carbonized wood finish creates a surface to the wood to harden and preserve it. The interior is unchanged. The Japanese further developed the technique millennia ago to finish house siding to protect from the elements. The siding becomes water and fire resistant. They call it shou sugi ban. It is typically done today by using a blowtorch on both sides of a plank.

Roasting wood, or torrefaction, is a controlled thermochemical process where wood is dried at 400º to 600ºF under atmospheric pressure and the absence of oxygen. Cell walls collapse, chemical composition changes, and drying is nearly complete. The process dates to the early 1800s in the production of charcoal briquets.

With a guitar neck the roasting process effectively speeds up what happens naturally over a period of decades. The neck on my 1969 Fender Telecaster Bass has never had its truss rod tweaked and it is dead straight today with no ski jump. That's extraordinary, and desirable. Roasting intends to achieve that stability immediately.

 

[Randydb]

I guess the added benefit of the wood from forrest is that they will get some spalting going naturally. I already know the school and porch part, but the part about carrying the logs made me LOL looking forward to pics.

Funny thing is that natural spalting is all I knew. Sometimes I would leave a chunk of wood for a year or two out in the bush until it was spalted enough and then bring it home to dry. I came across a couple threads recently about making spalting happen at home. I had no idea that was a thing. Makes perfect sense....I learn stuff every day.

 

[Crag the Brewer]

This is an amazing thread on a variety of levels.....I hope it keeps going

 

[Ron Raducanu]

So to the guys talking about the guitar necks- that is where I got this idea. I have a custom guitar neck made of roasted flame maple and as mentioned above, with weather, temp, and humidity changes, there is zero warping. I was hoping that would mean no swelling of a knife handle. I can just seal it with some tru oil or tung oil and all would be good.



I would recommend go for it. I got mine from warmoth. Its the best neck I've ever played by far.

Bold mine. If it is properly torrefied, it doesn't need to be sealed per se. The process seals the pores, so there isn't really a need to add anything else to prevent moisture absorption. Especially not with Tru-Oil. A light coat of Tung Oil to slicken it up a bit maybe, but Tru-Oil is really meant to form a thick, hard layer to protect more porous woods. I would try the feel of the wood first, and then maybe apply a little bit of Minwax, and that's it.

 

[Ron Raducanu]

Those are two different techniques. Hardening a wooden spear tip by burning to achieve a carbonized wood finish creates a surface to the wood to harden and preserve it. The interior is unchanged. The Japanese further developed the technique millennia ago to finish house siding to protect from the elements. The siding becomes water and fire resistant. They call it shou sugi ban. It is typically done today by using a blowtorch on both sides of a plank.

Roasting wood, or torrefaction, is a controlled thermochemical process where wood is dried at 400º to 600ºF under atmospheric pressure and the absence of oxygen. Cell walls collapse, chemical composition changes, and drying is nearly complete. The process dates to the early 1800s in the production of charcoal briquets.

With a guitar neck the roasting process effectively speeds up what happens naturally over a period of decades. The neck on my 1969 Fender Telecaster Bass has never had its truss rod tweaked and it is dead straight today with no ski jump. That's extraordinary, and desirable. Roasting intends to achieve that stability immediately.

Funny you mention your vintage Tele. The Strat in my avatar is 21 years old and I can't remember the last time I had to adjust the truss rod. The neck does not move anymore. It's awesome.