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Baked or Burnt Maple necks

twitchylizard

Junior Member
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Do you think Warmoth will ever offer a "baked" "burnt" maple option? It really brings out the grain of flame and birdseye and I find it sexy to be honest. I don't know exactly what goes into it but I've heard that it makes the neck more stable. I'd be willing to pay extra for it. Sorry if this has already been discussed.
 
Tough to say. It doesn't seem to be catching on anywhere other than at Gibson, so it may be something of a marketing ploy. Even there, they're just using it for fretboards. I have one on a Melody Maker, and it's nice enough. You get the smooth density of Maple without the pesky finish. Almost feels like Ebony, but looks more like Rosewood at a Maple cost (plus processing, of course).

But, you'd have to have a good-sized oven, which can't be too cheap to run, so there's some capital investment involved in machinery and the ongoing cost of operation and floorspace. You'd probably have to sell a helluva lotta the stuff to justify it. Warmoth already offers a wide variety of exotic fretboards, so what does baked Maple bring to the party?

I guess what I'm saying is if you want marketing gimmicks, go where they specialize in such things. Then when you've been raked over the coals long enough that you're done, come get the real deal. I'd suggest Pau Ferro.
 
In fairness, Cagey, there are respected high-end builders using the baked or roasted maple - Suhr and EBMM come to mind.  That doesn't mean the stuff performs better, but it gives comfort and aid to the proponents of that flavor of snake-oil, if snake-oil it be.  And if I am reading the propaganda correctly, the roasting process is claimed to stabilize the neck enough that you don't need a finish.


For my part, I think it's a good lookin' option, but not one I like well enough to give anyone my extra dollars for it.




 
Yeah, I probably shouldn't have called it a gimmick, and again in fairness I did say it provides nice feel without the need for a finish. But, I'm of the same mind in that I wouldn't pay a premium for it.

As an afterthought, though, I wonder if it's as expensive a process as I first thought. I have it on my Melody Maker, and that's the cheapest guitar Gibson makes. If the process were expensive, I doubt they'd use the stuff on one of those. I mean, we're talking about a guitar with a body that appears to be made of recycled gym flooring that barely has a finish on it, and the pickguard isn't even bevelled.
 
Just guessing, but maybe they just leave the lumber in the kiln few extra  hours.  I'll leave it to someone else to do the lmgtfy.com approach.
 
I don't think it is a gimmick..when the whole neck is baked or roasted its going to dry the neck out. Which is good. The wood of an electric guitar should be as dry as possible. Most people that own a roasted neck say it is way more stable. The ebmm players are raving about it. And it makes flame maple look way better. Makes the grain more prominent and dark. It may not be for some people, but it could be a cool option to have. Saying that, idk how much more I would pay for it. It would depend on what actually goes in to doing it.
 
Bagman67 said:
Just guessing, but maybe they just leave the lumber in the kiln few extra  hours.  I'll leave it to someone else to do the lmgtfy.com approach.

From what I've found, that's it. But, they crank the temperature to 300°F+ during that period so it roasts instead of just drying. The color change is due to the sugar content. The additional loss of moisture also lightens it slightly, weight-wise. It also shrinks a bit dimensionally. So, you roast it before you mill it. In other words, you don't roast necks; you roast wood and make necks out of it.
 
It's been awhile since I looked into this but many companies have used the process and it goes by just as many names. It is more than just drying, they use pressurized kilns. The cellular structure of the material changes as well as becoming super dry. It's more like dramatic and rapid aging.
 
exactly - the wood is loaded into an autoclave, the atmosphere is evacuated and replaced with inert gas(es), and then the temperature is raised/held/lowered in a controlled manner to achieve this roasting to rough lumber.

one pro for using this in a neck is stability. for the most part, any squirreling is going to happen to the wood during the roasting process. lumber I've used tends to remain as it is when resawn ... and depending on the species, it can also smell nice

I've attached a quick shot from the latest roasted lumber coming into the shop here. sourcing this can be difficult, and you need to test several sources until you find a supplier who has consistency in their product that also works well for neck building. depending on who you source from, roasted lumber is also 2-3 times more expensive than unroasted

all the best,

R
 

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since you roast the lumber you may be able to send them lumber pre-roasted. but warmoth may also turn it away if they don't feel it's up to a certain quality. you may also waive any warranty by not using warmoth lumber.
 
DavyDave53 said:
Did Gibson use this as roasted fretboard wood, before the Feds took away their ill gotten rosewood?

<psst.... You didn't hear it from me.  But no. No.>
 
The first time I saw a roasted neck (online) was a G&L prototype Classic Bluesboy, with a maple/maple neck. Beautiful, but the engineers said roasting can make the wood a touch brittle at the surface & developed hairline cracks when they pressed the dots in.
 
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