Burning the surface of wood

[mickthemiller]

Burning the surface of wood, or shou sugi ban as it's known in Japan, is a technique used to preserve wood for building purposes. Has this ever been used for, say, guitar tops? Or is torification an extension of this ancient method of wood treatment?

[murrmac123]

Pyrography isn't quite the same thing as shou sugi ban, but certainly there have been plenty guitars, both electric and acoustic, whose owners have customized them using pyrography.

I am just surmising here, but I imagine that the full-on shou sugi ban process as used in Japan would be detrimental to the tone of an acoustic guitar (especially if the top underwent the process) as it would create a charred layer which, again IMO, wouldn't vibrate to the same degree as a normal top.

[Michael Watts]

Yes it has!

Michi Matsuda at work here

[Wade Hampton]

Mick, so far as I’m aware, no guitar manufacturers use a charring method to finish guitar tops. I’m not certain it would work all that well, either, because spruce is typically softer than the woods that the Japanese do this to.

However, there’s at least one musical instrument that is routinely finished this way: the Japanese zither known as the koto.

In the summer of 1985 I played a tour of Japanese nightclubs and festivals. On my previous trip to Japan in 1983, I visited the workshop in the Japanese Alps where the high end Kentucky brand mandolins were made. An article I wrote about it was subsequently published in Frets Magazine, under the title “Frets Visits The Kentucky Mandolin Factory” (or something along those lines.) If you do a Google search for it you can find it online easily enough.

Anyway, Richard Keldsen, owner of Saga Musical Instruments, parent company to Kentucky mandolins and Blueridge guitars was quite pleased with the article I wrote. It was published at a time when most of what was written about Japanese-made instruments was very hostile, but the article I wrote was respectful.

So when I went back to Japan a year and a half later, he told me: “You’ve got to go visit the koto factory in Hiroshima Prefecture.” The company in question made kotos for the Japanese domestic market, but Keldsen imported some for Japanese music enthusiasts in North America and elsewhere.

The way they made them was to carve out a tree trunk of paulownia wood, which I believe is called “kiri” wood in Japanese.

Once they had the arched trunk of the tree carved out to create a body cavity, and had everything down to its final dimensions, what they did next was heat an iron piece about four or five inches square in a hearth filled with glowing coals. The iron piece had a metal extension that was screwed into a long wooden handle, and when they pulled the metal end out of the coals it was white hot.

This they ran along the surface of the koto body, and flames burst out as the iron piece was pulled over the wood. It’s not as though the entire thing caught fire, but there was definitely ignition as the white hot iron piece came into contact with the wood surface.

At that point they took six inch bundles of hard straw, and used a rubbing compound to buff and burnish the wood as they rubbed the ends of the straw against the charred surface of the paulownia wood. This smoothed away any rough surfaces and brought out the contrast between the darker and lighter colors that charring the wood surface developed.

It was fascinating to watch.

Paulownia wood is harder than spruce, but a similar process might work with mahogany-topped guitars.

There’s not much more that I can add, since I only was there for a few hours. But it was fascinating to witness.

Hope this helps.


Wade Hampton Miller

[The Bard Rocks]

There are two I could mention:

Bass Rock Guitars does something of this sort on many of their creations. (no kidding).

....And then there is Kerry Char. (kidding)

[Christian Reno]

The char is removed after the burning process and the remaining top layer of cells are somewhat crystalized. Crimson guitars uses the process, but on electric solid body guitars.

[slowesthand]

Jimi Hendrix tried it.....!

[mickthemiller]

Thanks for the replies guys. It seems there is nothing that nobody has tried. Amazing world.

[Jeff Scott]

Tony Yamamoto builds guitars with paulownia for complete bodies, and as tops for other b&s woods. No hot coals involved , that I know of, but the guitars sound wonderful, regardless (I have a 12 fret Talus with paulownia top and cocobolo b&s).

[TokyoNeko]

Originally Posted by Michael Watts

Yes it has!

Michi Matsuda at work here

I was hoping he would explain why he charred the top with gunpowder and what the effect it has on the sound on the video, but he didn't. He just introduced the guitar and provided an overview, calling it a "East Meets West" concept guitar.

[JJI]

Originally Posted by TokyoNeko

I was hoping he would explain why he charred the top with gunpowder and what the effect it has on the sound on the video, but he didn't. He just introduced the guitar and provided an overview, calling it a "East Meets West" concept guitar.

It had nothing to do with sound...Michi gets an idea, a concept in his head and he builds it. He is a rare artist...truly creative. He sees the world differently than most. The gunpowder guitars sound great, and of course scorching the top has an effect on tone but it’s impossible to know what that or those differences are. Michi is the only builder doing it, and he is doing it on his 00 body...there’s nothing to compare. Originally though it was literally an east meets west concept that he brought to life. An experiment.
I am privileged to shoot Michi’s guitars for a project he and I have been working on for the last couple years, attached is a scorched top build.

[jwellsy]

This reminds me of BB King's Lucille.

[ruby50]

Don Williams was the Smithsonian furniture finsihing guy for a couple of decades, and since retiring he has done a lot of interesting things - he has made the tools in the Ruobo writings, reproduced the Gragg chair, wrote the book on the Studley tool chest, knows (and writes) more about shellac than anybody, makes his own early varnishes, teaches veneering and other old skills, and discovered a tool that was lost for a few hundred years - it sounds like the tool used by the Japanese to remove the char:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/theBarn/Art..._Polissoir.pdf

Ruobo used it for waxing (the most common furniture finish of the era) but I have taken a short course from Don on using it to burnish wood - it makes the surface look much like a scraped surface. Maybe someone has a use for one of these - he sells them, but they are very easy to make from a $4 whisk broom and 2 hose clamps.

Lots of good stuff on his site

Ed