Steve, your wife sent that shot after she was going to bake something a couple of weeks back.
She said she didn't know it was in there! You could end up with an interesting dinner one day.
Timothy F. Lewis
"If brains was lard, that boy couldn't grease a very big skillet" J.D. Clampett
When Johnny Hutto lived in Salem Va. and first started building mandolins, he "baked" (his term) a few of his. He was playing in a local band at the time that I was playing guitar in. He said he did it to dry the wood and to take out the new look of the insides. I assume that the carving would have been done to accomplish that.
Here's a green way of "baking" I just came across using fungi to age tonewoods. I wonder if you can grow some mushrooms on the side.
http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/201...-of-fungus.cfm
The process involves eating the wood inside a vacuum, driving out all the moisture, and slightly compacting the cells in the process. The natural resins in the wood harden. It's hard. It's not something that can be done at home, and the process needs to be done to the raw wood, before carving, as it'll deform the wood slightly, and probably really warp a pre-carved top. The set-ups now are rather expensive, so unless you're going to have a really large production setup, it won't pay. it's different stuff, and the working process are different. Just ask my chisels. It's also tough to make take a finish, as the cells have closed so completely. It was originally developed as a way to treat wood for siding and decking, with no finish necessary. Comparing it to anything else is just not all that accurate, but tonally, at least in the guitars I've heard, it's a beautiful sound.
roasted wood or thermally modified wood is wood that has been treated at very high temperatures resulting in greated stability, appealing darker color and moisture / midew resistance please see https://www.thermallymodifiedwood.org/ for more information
I was Born in the Napa Valley, they will have a lot of roasted woods..
writing about music
is like dancing,
about architecture
Being retired from construction I can agree with those who said 100 year fir was hard. In 100 year old houses all the wood is hard pine floors as hard as oak and if you run into oak framing you can hardly drill a hole to drive. A nail through. Something makes it harder I don’t claim to know what, but I have a couple thoughts. It’s been said that when wood reaches the moisture content of the surrounding air it doesn’t dry any further, true but how could it without lowering the relative humidity of its envirment. The heat would do this. Now does the relative high heat do something so the wood doesn’t absorb moisture from it’s surrounding. If so I think it would make instruments sound different better is in the ear of the hearer. I think my mandolin sounds better when it’s not so humid. Back to the wood in old houses, it has been out of the weather but not out of the heat for 100 years. Is the airless (so it won’t burn) heat used in tone wood just speeding up the process. Another question for us to ponder, but if heat over time does this wouldn’t that confirm the “opening up” question. Enquiring minds want to know.
After 3 years, it's good to see this is still a hot topic.
Bookmarks