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I watched partway through that and just bailed. I think they know even less than the posters here, which isn't really very much. That was amateur night at the Apollo.
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03-01-2018 05:59 PM
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This sort of video is great as a way to understand the general mindset I suppose - in that it both illustrates it and may reinforce it as well.
No harm certainly.
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Oooooh, maybe not the meaning you intended regarding “posters here”?
I understand that I am a comparative ass-hat and a challenge to reason, so I can do with some criticism. But in general I think this is a pretty solid place.
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I don't know what I can add. I have a quartersawn one piece roasted maple neck on my Strat. It is great to feel the natural wood and I think that it sounds much older than it looks. I like to feel the same way about myself except my frets need leveled.
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I was referring only to personal knowledge of Gibson's finances and management decisions. I'm not aware of anyone here who has that, but I could certainly be wrong.
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To come back to this and maybe think it though some.
Originally Posted by jzucker
A finish on wood can do a number of things.
Provde some surface durability, keep it from being stained, slow down the intrusion of moisture - arguably improving stability, and maybe look nice to some.
In my opinion, while torrefied maple is slightly more brittle than “natural” maple, it is harder, darker and less susceptible to staining (or noticeable staining anyway), MUCH more resistant to dimensional instability (due to environmental changes), and arguably perfectly fine looking.
So in my opinion you can go naked.
This has some benefits in terms of feel, especially as your fretting hand changes temperature or gets sweaty a little while playing.
A hard finish can be sticky at some times and slippery at other times. Bare-ass wood is more consistent in terms of feel under varying conditions.
My opinion. Surely others may see it differently.
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To recycle the joke about the Cremonese masters using formed spruce tops (they did not):
If the masters of Cremona had made fingerboard blanks from maple then dropped them into Mount Vesuvius to roast, then restored the moisture content with pope-spit or something - this would be the standard and we would be up in arms about Robert Taylor foisting that horrible, chippy, unstable Ebony on us all.
I have an irrational sense that Richlite is not as good as wood. But bring on the torrefied wood for all sorts of applications. I can not find any way to see it as a problem.
I am not romantic about trees or anything. But it is not a great leap for me to see Ebony much like Ivory. We know we can do better than to plow through this stuff.
I do not mean this in any sort of “Kum-bah-ya” sense. I just mean that I am very happy about the sort of guitars we can expect to see for many decades to come while doing less damage.
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I agree with everything except I think that it will still stain fairly easily at least until the oil from you hands and fingers seal it a bit. It still absorbs moisture and oil for a shallow depth on the surface. If you bled on it you would probably not be able to remove the stain by just wiping. You might be able to get it off with some sanding. Staining may be the only drawback. Originally Posted by ptchristopher3
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Hi Lammie,
I understand. The color of the torrefied maple can vary widely, so yes in a lighter color it would be a problem vs. a polyester finish like the recycled leisure suits my Telecaster is covered with.
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I have zero knowledge of Gibson’s decisions. I do KNOW for a fact that Henry J. should not wear that purple blazer. Originally Posted by sgosnell
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The nearly interesting thing here is that the torrefied wood is not really roasted. It is heated in a reduced oxygen environment, so the darker color is not akin to charring. Further, this darkening (and for that matter all effects or torrefaction) extends into the wood, it is not a surface artifact.
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Still a lot of awesome info going on here. Thanks for everyone’s input.
I wonder what would happen if they torrefied a laminate body, like a 175. A clear coat torrefied 175 would certainly look cool - I wonder how it would sound and hold up and if they could do it with a laminate body.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
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I suppose absolutely everything is worth trying. But you could not torrefy a laminate, you would have to laminate torrified layers. Well unless you used some sort of adhesive that could stand the heat of torrefaction - there are possibly such adhesives that would be practical. Originally Posted by rio
Torrefied layers would be harder to form, such as on a 175. Further, laminate bodies already have many of the characteristics or stability that torrefaction gives.
For all I know, someone has already done this.
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Trying to bake a hollow body already constructed wouldn't work very well. It would just fall apart in the process as the glue melted. None of the adhesives normally used to construct guitars will survive the required temperatures. I agree that standard laminated tops come close enough to what I understand torrefaction does.
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Not an expert by any means, but baking something as thin a laminate layer seems like a bad idea. It is already brittle by mere fact that it is so thin. Baking billets and then cutting them into laminate layers might be a possibility, but likely not worth it. Besides the difficulty of machining something that would be brittle, the moisture content would probably already be fairly low in laminate pieces just because of their thicknesses anyway. Baking an already glued up laminate probably won't work because of what sgosnell wrote above. Best not try and reinvent the wheel IMHO.
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Honestly I woke up this morning CERTAIN that the term “Baking billets” was not going to be part of my day. Originally Posted by lammie200
Shows how wrong one can be.
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Sorry, I meant to say "baking biscuits." Of course the gravy is optional. Originally Posted by ptchristopher3
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Gravy is not optional around here.
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Around Christmas I built a Tele with a baked maple neck by Musikraft and a very nice looking and smelling (!) piece of birdseye maple it is .
It's two months later now, a couple of gigs and rehearsals and a few hours of noodling around on it at home and this is what I can report :
this neck is much stiffer than the 25 year old Warmoth maple neck on my other Tele and a single coating with Renaissance Wax is all that's on there for protection; no stains, no color-change at all and very little build-up of grime since it's very smooth. So for me it was a good choice and I can recommend it one hundred percent.
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