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Wonder if this may have applications in guitar making? It's looks to maybe be better than the roasted/torrified method used today which is basically the same as making charcoal.

https://phys.org/news/2020-02-lumber-ad ... ssure.html

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

For what purpose? I guess the hydrophobic properties would be useful, but people aren’t using torrefied wood for that purpose generally, it’s a side benefit. Also not choosing it for mold resistance. It gets used because of the tonal changes it yields which comes from the reduction of the lignuns and hemicellulose and what all in the cells of the wood.

So would this type of wood have a tonal benefit? With an actual molecular barrier I’d wonder about how it would glue and take finish...if you know where to get some I’d be happy to try it.

That's got to be worth keeping an eye on. They seem a long way off large scale commercialisation but a reduction in water absorption could be big benefit.

Dave

That looks very interesting. A guitar made from it just might last forever. But... I suspect a whole new finishing process, not to mention gluing, would have to be developed.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

You beat me to it, Joe.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Waterproof...
So will that need a waterproof glue?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

The process changes the density, strength, acoustic response, etc. I think possible use for guitars has nothing to do with the fungus or water resistance.

Wow. Even more problematic than finishes.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Where do you get that from? There was no mention of changes to density, strength, or acoustic response etc., in the article, only mention of water resistance and fungal resistance.

The process deposits metal oxides throughout the wood structure. Physical properties have no choice but to change.

We may be getting ahead of ourselves here.... Why would this process be applied to lumber destined for our market?

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I guess as an alternative to carbon fiber?

Funny that CF would have an alternative. I'd imagine you could use epoxy to glue in the braces.

Builders use torrified wood because they think it will sound "older" than regular wood. If the wood is less reactive to RH changes, that is a bonus.

With this particular wood treatment, do we think the wood will sound older? Or, will it just be less reactive to RH changes?

Whatever the benefits from this treatment, will the wood be harder to glue together and to finish, due to the altered characteristics of the wood?

Those are the pertinent questions, in my view. The answers give us the information needed to get a start on a decent cost/benefit analysis.

I think the important thing here isn't necessarily the exact process as much as being aware that there are new ways to treat wood that could have applications to make instrument building better at some point.

Here is another article of interest for people making things from wood.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stronger-than-steel-able-to-stop-a-speeding-bullet-mdash-it-rsquo-s-super-wood/

Not that we need "bulletproof" guitars. I didn't realize Scientific American had resorted to click bait titles and this one was pretty silly for a "Science" magazine. But the article was interesting in spite of the title.

But my head started thinking of places to use improved strength wood in an acoustic guitar. I thought of thin necks w/o truss rods, braces or tops w/o needing braces at all. Or maybe the treated wood will have the tone of MDF, we don't know that yet.

I'm not a big fan of torrification but a lot of builders who said they'd never "bake a top" 10 years ago are using or experimenting with heat processed wood. I'd fall in that category myself. I've used torrified maple in a bridge and I have a torrefied spruce top and braces to build with when moved to try it.

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

The article describes just three effects of the treatment:
- It makes the wood so hydrophobic that it's impervious to water.
- It may make wood resistant to fungal attack (see above).
- The treated wood has lower thermal conductivity.

There is zero information about physical properties of the treated wood such as stiffness, density, damping, etc. that are relevant to musical instruments. There is zero information about what effects wood treated this way might have on tonal characteristics of an instrument built with it.

Based on what the article actually has to say about the wood treated by the new method, I have no idea why anyone would think it would be of any benefit for guitar building in any way that matters over good old "normal" wood.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Filling the pores with metal oxides.
Hope they have better luck pore filling than I do

My thoughts exactly. Changing the metal or oxides used in the deposition could actually have a noticeable effect on tone.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Moisture resistance alone is huge!

No more cracked tops from low RH!! Also when a piece of wood moves from changes in RH it's weight changes and thereby it's density..... You can track wood to see if it is stable with a simple but accurate scale, I have done that for decades.... This has real applications that I can see where as Torrifaction seems to be mostly about the look. Roasted necks etc.

And for those who didn't know the first torrified wood I saw was almost 20 years ago and it was marketed as an exterior product for use in the home building trade. We did porch floors with the stuff.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

I think people choose torrefied wood mostly for the tone, not the look. And it's also very dimensionally stable through RH swings as it's hydrophobic.

I would wonder how much this other process changes density etc as the article and video make no mention of it at all, and it seems to me if it's a layer only a few molecules thick it might be negligible, but without any data it's just speculation.

Guitars don't really need to be impervious to water or anything because you're not trying to drag your guitar through the rain in a tropical jungle. I suspect there will be tonal changes and sacrifices will be made. I mean if you think about it those carbon fiber guitars are pretty much waterproof and you don't have to worry about humidity. And you know how we all make jokes about Ovations...

Now that would be a good application for deck woods, timber frames but I can't imagine making a giant vacuum chamber to deposit metal oxides into the pores of the wood and still be cost competitive. I mean imagine paying 1000 dollars for a single 2x4! You'd rather build houses out of reinforced concrete with that kind of cost. Pressure treated wood is expensive because it involves giant pressure cookers... and I haven't seen anyone build houses out of pressure treated wood in very tropical climates.

Also, if your guitar is prone to termite infestation, then you should reconsider your storage...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

rbuddy wrote: "I think the important thing here isn't necessarily the exact process as much as being aware that there are new ways to treat wood that could have applications to make instrument building better at some point." +1

To me, a lot of things are interesting even though they may have no immediate practical use. Having an active and well-informed mind is an end in itself. While I appreciate Brian's specific how-to posts, especially about finishing methods and materials, I find more wide-ranging info interesting and appreciated being pointed to this article. Thanks, Brian!

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Tim Allen
"Never hurry, never rest."

Some of the metal oxides they are adding to the wood are used as paint pigments. I wounder if the process changes the color of the wood?

Of the three metal oxides they tested, titanium dioxide was the most effective for making the wood hydrophobic. Titanium dioxide is the most widely used white pigment in paints, however, the article says that it's deposited in a layer only a few atoms thick. The separate research article that they published on this includes the figure below showing treated and untreated pine samples one year after treatment. The treated wood doesn't appear to show any white coloring relative to the untreated wood, at least in these photos.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter