Warmoth Kiln dried body!!!

[back2thefutre]

Kiln dried and chambered please!!!!
and also baseball whatchamacallit necks(no truss rod)

 

[hannaugh]

All the wood is already kiln dried.  Pretty much every professionally built guitar you will ever see that was made in the last several decades has kiln dried wood.  The old old pre-war guitars and mandolins that are worth so much money now are so valuable in part because they were made before everything in sight was kiln dried.  Air drying happens much more slowly (we're talking years and years of drying. In theory = sweet sweet tone and a more stable construction).  That and there was better American wood available at the time, QC, etc...  Kiln drying is a neccessity to increase productivity and decrease prices, not something that is done to improve the wood, although it does offer the person/company total control over the drying conditions so there is less chance of messing the wood up while it is drying due to humidity and such.

And you can get a chambered body from Warmoth no problem. 

I don't understand why you wouldn't want a truss rod.  :icon_scratch:  Please explain.

 

[line6man]

Yeah, I'm curious about the truss rod thing as well.

 

[mayfly]

Yeah, I'm curious about the truss rod thing as well.

+1.  I'm also wondering what you are aiming to achieve with no truss rod.

 

[Mor Paul]

Some people say it's important to tone. If you want to nail the earliest electric guitar sounds (tele, 52, I think) the lack of a truss rod and the presence of a thick neck is said to be important.

 

[mayfly]

Some people say it's important to tone. If you want to nail the earliest electric guitar sounds (tele, 52, I think) the lack of a truss rod and the presence of a thick neck is said to be important.

Ectually, according to fender lore only the first pre-production broadcaster guitars had no truss rod.  We're talking about less than 100 examples.  These were all pretty much replaced under warranty with truss rod necks.

If you can find an early tele out there with no truss rod, It's going to be extremely rare - and have a warped neck as well  :icon_biggrin:

 

[Mor Paul]

That sounds about right.

 

[hannaugh]

Some people say it's important to tone. If you want to nail the earliest electric guitar sounds (tele, 52, I think) the lack of a truss rod and the presence of a thick neck is said to be important.

I would like to see this tested on Mythbusters.

 

[line6man]

Some people say it's important to tone. If you want to nail the earliest electric guitar sounds (tele, 52, I think) the lack of a truss rod and the presence of a thick neck is said to be important.

I would like to see this tested on Mythbusters.

Hell no!

I saw what they did with that exploding trombone myth. :sad:

:blob7:

 

[hannaugh]

Yeah, I'll admit that they cut corners sometimes on that show.  It's entertaining none the less.  For the record though, they revisited the trombone myth due to viewer dissatisfaction and they got a different result.  So at least they corrected their mistake. 

I would like to see a number of guitar myths put to the test.  As long as they don't blow up anything pretty.

 

[line6man]

Yeah, I'll admit that they cut corners sometimes on that show.  It's entertaining none the less.  For the record though, they revisited the trombone myth due to viewer dissatisfaction and they got a different result.  So at least they corrected their mistake.  

I would like to see a number of guitar myths put to the test.  As long as they don't blow up anything pretty.

Definitely an entertaining show.
I thought the brown note episode was hilarious.  :blob7:

I'm trying to remember what other music/sound related myths they did.

There was the one about shattering a glass by singing a high pitched note.

 

[back2thefutre]

Well what I should have said was 'cooked wood' not just kiln dried. this is where I read about it

http://www.themusiczoo.com/blog/2009/can-you-smell-what-the-music-zoo-is-cooking/

The music zoo had one of these for sale on their site, but it's gone now. The body looked like it had been cooked in an oven til the crust was golden brown and the cheese was melted. But seriously it looked burnt and charred. It was way cool and I bet it sounded real good. What do ya'll think!?!

 

[OzziePete]

The only burnt guitar bodies I know of that have any value are the ones torched by Jimi Hendrix in the 60s. The rest are just burnt guitar bodies.

If my high school physics is correct, burning wood transfers some of the organic matter (wood) into charcoal.

Whether that improves tone or the usability of wood for musical purposes I would not have a clue. :dontknow:

Making a guitar body crusty on the outer core is certainly not kiln drying a piece of wood, it's burning it.

 

[Death by Uberschall]

Did I read that article correctly, the body was made out of "pine"??  :dontknow:

If so, they should have just kept on cooking it beyond recognition!!!  :toothy11:

 

[back2thefutre]

Next time I have an unfinished body I'll try this out. I'll put it in the oven and see what happens. or cook it over a campfire?????????? :headbang: :headbang1: or just pull  a jimi hendrix

 

[OzziePete]

Next time I have an unfinished body I'll try this out. I'll put it in the oven and see what happens. or cook it over a campfire?????????? :headbang: :headbang1: or just pull  a jimi hendrix

I did this to a cheap LP copy body years ago and because it was a laminated body, the thing blistered and peeled the layers all over the place.

I really wouldn't recommend you waste good wood on such an experiment. Also the blistering may make finishing a harder task after you have finished being Jimi.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

It would make sense that a chambered body would air dry naturally faster, it has more surface area (walls of the chambers) and less mass.  Even with a glued top and finish, there is enough unfinished wood, whether it be neck pocket, pickup wire holes, bridge wire holes, etc. not sealed by overspray that could let the rest of the body breathe.

 

[-CB-]

every professionally built guitar ... that was made in the last several decades has kiln dried wood.  The old old pre-war guitars and mandolins that are worth so much money now are so valuable in part because they were made before everything in sight was kiln dried.  Air drying happens much more slowly (we're talking years and years of drying. In theory = sweet sweet tone and a more stable construction).  That and there was better American wood available at the time, QC, etc...  Kiln drying is a necessity to increase productivity and decrease prices, not something that is done to improve the wood, although it does offer the person/company total control over the drying conditions so there is less chance of messing the wood up while it is drying due to humidity and such.

Hannaugh....  I'm going to respectfully disagree.  A bit of research, plus my previous life in a mill-shop tell me otherwise.

First off... air drying is a matter of months, not years and years.  The lumber is pre-sawn oversize, its not raw uncut logs sitting in the drying racks.  Kiln drying of lumber for guitars can be a matter of a week or so, or perhaps more depending on the wood type and original moisture content.  Again, we're talking wood that is cut more or less to be planed to a certain size when dry.  I'm guessing its 8/4 or 9/4 when dry, to be finished to 7/4 (or 1-3/4 inches finished).  Kiln drying imparts a significant amount of waste, because of the speed at which the wood dries.  For increased production, the waste is accepted... or tolerated, so yes, the wood does get messed up.  The tone merits of air dried vs kiln dried wood can be argued till yer blue in the patootie, but nobody will win it.  The stability of wood at a certain moisture content is no different as long as the content is uniform throughout the wood.  Uniformity is something kiln drying can lack if really rushed but information in the industry publications suggests that they are trying to really nail down the optimum kiln operation to get minimum waste and maximum uniformity.

There are formulas given for the kiln drydown of various woods by species at temperature, depending on the thickness, the cut, the age, etc etc... its a bit of an art as well as a science.

My personal belief, is the "old wood" thing... its desirability is more due to the fact that its rare and hard to get, than any significant increase in the timbre of the timber.  :glasses10:

There is evidence of kiln drying being in widespread commercial use as far back as the late 30's, as production was already in place well prior to WW-II (more than a just a few decades back).  http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/jspui/bitstream/1957/2249/1/FPL_1901ocr.pdf

I'm sure somebody at Warmoth can add some more insight into this whole thread....

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

A few months ago, Chris Klein of Klein pickups (http://www.kleinpickups.com) came to one of my band's shows.  I picked his brain during a few of the set breaks.  He is of the belief that many guitar manufacturers have such a rush to production that the wood, even if kiln dried, is fairly "green."  One of his visions is to eventually sell fully assembled parts guitars (think Allparts, Warmoth, USACG) that he had ordered unfinished, let sit in a climate controlled area for months, before (Nirto-cellulose) finishing them in house and selling them.  He will be the first to tell you that a whole lot of "this vs. that" affecting tone is all in the eye of the beholder and very subjective, but at the same time, he's been around enough toneheads to realize that there is a market for what he wants to do.  Just look at the boutique amp market.  Overpriced repros of "the way they used to make 'em."

This isn't related to kiln vs. natural air drying but does relate to wood and climate sensitivity.  He told me that if you were to order a Gibson from the factory and have it delivered to your house, on the box there is a recommendation that you hold off on opening the box for 2 days to let the body slowly acclimate.  Afterall, a few days before it may have been at 30,000 feet with freezing temperatures and 0% humidity.

One more little interesting caveat, his pickups (or any) will have different ohm readings depending on the humidity and temperature.  He has mulimetered a set here in TX, flown to Australia to deliver them, test them again (with the same meter) and got a different reading.

 

[-CB-]

Guitars, and Warmoth parts, do settle in.  Think of Gibson (since it was mentioned).  They build something in their air conditioned factory, it goes to their air conditioned warehouse, but doesn't sit there very long.  Then it goes, by truck, to various places.  Some large dealers are actually distribution points for other dealers.  To those dealers, it may go air, but probably goes truck.  So now you have guitars that might be sitting in the back of some Guitar Center's local store waiting for space on the wall, or may be on the wall in some mom and pop store, or, in some warehouse, waiting for final customer shipment at a place like  Musicians Friend.  Then it goes - by air or by truck - to your house, or you pick it up at a store and bring it home, where the climate is again different.

We also see seaonal changes, based on seasonal humidity and yes, it can, and does throw your truss rod setting off, and relief setting off.  I lose anyplace from .005 to .010 in relief in the winter here - because we're backward from most places.  Most places heat in the winter and get dry.  In Florida we open windows in winter and get humid.  Summer is all AC and much drier, where up north, some places are just open windows.

I'm not sure about the rush to production thing.  There has to be a certain amount of moisture in the wood - a known amount - so that production standards can be kept, as far as the parts fitting.  If they rushed, and things weren't as they ought to be, they'd have problems down the line, or guitars falling apart at the seams.  I'm not sure we're seeing this, but yes, they do settle in.    I think it was a few days ago I advised someone here to not make any huge truss rod adjustments after first assembly, but to allow things to settle in from tension - the same is true when you get a new guitar in your house.  And the same also plagues really good techs who can do good work, but then have guitars go into places that is totally different from their shops, throwing their work all to hell.