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Roasted Maple

5392 Views 33 Replies 10 Participants Last post by  eleven59
Other than sounding really delicious, like some kind of candy that nobody ever told you about, apparently EBMM and Sadowski are offering "roasted maple" necks on some guitars these days.

http://www.ernieball.com/email/roasted_maple/index.html



First, I want to know where the hell they're getting the lumber. I suspect the same source for both builders, and I wonder if little custom shops can get theirs hands on it.

Second, wonder if anyone thinks this is bullshit. I'm vaguely familiar with the microstructure of wood :)miniwang:) but I don't know if oxidizing all the internal sugars, etc., would really result in the properties they're claiming.

I consider this to be analogous to sintering ceramics, where you basically bake out voids and moisture from a green ceramic product to increase mechanical properties and density.

Also, why does EBMM not offer the wood on Floyd Rose-equipped guitars? Is the wood too brittle to handle the locking nut, perhaps resulting in cracking over time with whammy abuse? If so, why aren't the tuners affected, or are they to a lesser degree?

Either way, I must admit it's pretty.
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They must raise the temperature pretty high - they're roasting it in the vacuum so that the wood won't catch fire due to lack of oxygen. Nifty.
I doubt it is in a vacuum. The off-gassing of carbon species at high temperatures would make it extremely hard to maintain a proper vacuum. :nuts:

I would guess that they use an inert gas furnace, utilizing either nitrogen or argon environments to maintain a non-oxidizing environment during the firing process. :yesway:

:fawk: :D

EDIT: That wood grain looks fabulous roasted
Inert atmosphere would work, but it's pointless when you can just suck the air out. Either way the carbon will outgas, and you want to get that shit out of the furnace. Ergo, according to Wiki (don't know who wrote that section, not cited), they pull a vacuum on the chamber. You're right that they won't be able to maintain a perfect vacuum, but they can start with a low pressure atmosphere and continue to draw out the moisture and gasses as they evolve. No fire will start.
Ahhh I see. So it is more of a lean flammability limit thing than a totally inert environment. Makes sense. I was thinking they were doing something like a 30 millitorr vacuum to create a totally inert environment, which would be extremely hard with water vapor and CO/CO2 off-gassing. (however, without combustion CO/CO2 off-gassing is << Water vapor)
^Yeah, that is what is usually done, but the pumps on high vacuum systems are high pressure head, low flow rate, so if you purge and then you put a material with 40% water in there, the offgassing rate could exceed the vacuum pump rate, and then you start increasing pressure.

EDIT: :facepalm: There would be little oxygen though. However, water gas shift reaction would likely take place. CO(g) + H2O(v) → CO2(g) + H2(g). Still not an issue unless you have proper stoichiometry to combust the hydrogen. So, Leon, I concede and I was wrong :(
Get a bigger pump! :lol:
That may work. With low flowrate high delta p pumps, it is better to run multiple in parallel, because those types of pumps usually don't scale favorably as far as efficiency is concerned. However, I see that I was wrong and this is entirely possible.

Edit: :leon:
Wirelessly posted (Mjolnir: Opera/9.80 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.2.21992/21.549; U; en) Presto/2.5.25 Version/10.54)

Observation: we're talking process controls and engineering here. Where are the tone snobs? :lol:
We probably chased them out while we were :leon:ing out. :lol:
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