How did age your torrefied top guitar ?

mawmow · #1 03-05-2021, 10:01 AM

It has been a few years now that torrefied tops appeared...

Such tops are articifially aged by the torrefaction process ("baked")
so that these would have already "opened up" when fixed on a guitar body.
Is it true ? I hope quite so...

But, it raises another question to my mind :
How actually age a whole guitar made of "young" woods with a torrefied top ?

llew · #2 03-05-2021, 10:12 AM

Some builders are actually "baking" the entire parts of the guitar. Bourgeois is doing that now I believe? As far as how the torrified top and non-torrified back, sides, bracing, etc will age I have no clue. I suppose time will tell?

catdaddy · #3 03-05-2021, 11:46 AM

I have a Bourgeois AT Mahogany D which has a baked top only. It sounded great when I bought it 3 years ago and it sounds great today. I've noticed no difference in tone or volume and there have been no structural issues.

mawmow · #4 03-06-2021, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catdaddy

I have a Bourgeois AT Mahogany D which has a baked top only. It sounded great when I bought it 3 years ago and it sounds great today. I've noticed no difference in tone or volume and there have been no structural issues.

Thanks a lot catdaddy !

redir · #5 03-08-2021, 09:25 AM

I find that there is some kernal of truth to this torrifaction thing.

When I put strings on a brand new guitar I just built for the very first time I notice it go through tremendous changes in tone within hours, literally. The next day it is a new guitar and that process slows down till about a week later when you get a true sense of what the guitar is going to sound like. Then that process continues for years but at a rate that most people won't even notice. But it's really quite something to behold when a guitar is born so to speak.

About two years ago I started working with torrefied tops and what I noticed is that there is almost no change at all within the first hours and days. There is a bit but not much. So something is going on there and my guess is that the day you buy a torrified top guitar it's going to be set in what it sounds like for the life of the guitar.

This is all subjective though as I have no way of testing such a thing but it does seem like it in an anecdotal way.

Another observation that is interesting is that on an old guitar like the 1860's Martin guitar I have in for a restoration now, if I put a very bright light in the sound hole the top of the guitar is totally opaque. If you do that on a new guitar with a spruce or cedar top you will see the bracing shadows 'ghosting' through the top. But not on a very old guitar and interestingly not on a new guitar with a torrefied top. So does that mean that the torrefaction process artificially ages the wood? Well in that sense yes it does.

McCawber · #6 03-08-2021, 09:56 AM

I put a Tonerite on my new D-28A to help "break in" the torrified top for a couple of days after I brought it home. It seemed to help but I could probably get the same result by playing it a lot. FYI, I've noticed that the Tonerite seems to have better results with red spruce tops than sitka. I lent it to my local dealer to try it on some their guitars and they reported similar results. (They decided to carry the Tonerite as a stock item.)

stormin1155 · #7 03-08-2021, 12:52 PM

I had a '61 J-50 in my shop with a smashed in top that needed replaced. The thing looked like it had spent the past 30 years in a barn and the entire finish needed to be stripped and refinished. I used a torrified sitka top and was able to reuse the existing braces, which were very light. The original top was very thin, and I sanded the new top to the same thickness.

The guitar sounded amazing from the start. The odd thing is that within the first few weeks the top finish developed fine, uniform finish checking over the entire surface. I was rather horrified, but my customer thought it was great, so all was good. I applied the same finish (nitro) over the entire instrument, and it only checked like that on the top. So I don't know if it was the thin top or something with the torrification process, or what. This was my first time using a torrified top.

redir · #8 03-08-2021, 01:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stormin1155

I had a '61 J-50 in my shop with a smashed in top that needed replaced. The thing looked like it had spent the past 30 years in a barn and the entire finish needed to be stripped and refinished. I used a torrified sitka top and was able to reuse the existing braces, which were very light. The original top was very thin, and I sanded the new top to the same thickness.

The guitar sounded amazing from the start. The odd thing is that within the first few weeks the top finish developed fine, uniform finish checking over the entire surface. I was rather horrified, but my customer thought it was great, so all was good. I applied the same finish (nitro) over the entire instrument, and it only checked like that on the top. So I don't know if it was the thin top or something with the torrification process, or what. This was my first time using a torrified top.

I would say that was a lucky accident. You basically reliced the top to make it look old. I have not found any differences with the finishing process on torrified tops. But perhaps a base coat of shellac might seal off any problems.