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You know how you can stick a bright light inside the guitar and see the bracing patterns ghost through?

This is a standard Carpathian Spruce top for example:



I stuck the same bulb in a guitar I am building today and I won't even bother taking a picture of it. It's completely black. There is no light at all coming through the torrified Red Spruce top and this spruce top is .1in thick.

I thought that was interesting and you might think the same.

this is what happens to old wood and torrified wood. Dick Boak showed that 6 years ago at the ASIA symposium when Martin started using this. It is interesting, it is the hemocellulous cell structure that changes. The old wood from my old 1800 martins are the same. Very interesting to see for the first time.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Yeah I was pretty fascinated by that. I've got a few vintage guitars from the 20's I need to check out with the light just to see.

On the other side, this is Alaskan Yellow Cedar as the sun went down

Give it another hundred years Ed and it will be dark as night

Another observation about torrified tops I found yesterday is that when you screw up and dent the top steaming the dent doens't do a darn thing. The wood simply will NOT expand under hot steam. Which sux because now I'm in a pickle.

Good to know, I just got my first torrefied top from Bob C. to use in my next build. I've used some torrefied maple and found that it doesn't bend as well and is somewhat brittle.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"