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Increasing wood density with microwaves
http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=30606
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Author:  Mark Groza [ Thu Jan 06, 2011 1:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Increasing wood density with microwaves

I thought this was interesting. www.microwavewoodprocessing.com/introduction.htm

Author:  jac68984 [ Thu Jan 06, 2011 3:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Increasing wood density with microwaves

Looks to me as though the process decreases the density of the treated wood, expanding the cell structure due to steam and high pressures, so that impregnation becomes easier. Don't think that would be a good thing for use with guitar woods. Might depend on what you used to fill the structure, but the wood alone would seem to be weakened dramatically from the process.

Author:  Alan Carruth [ Thu Jan 06, 2011 4:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Increasing wood density with microwaves

That piece of wood in the picture heading the article looked just like a piece that a friend of mine microwaved about 25 years ago. He was trying to dry a piece of maple in a hurry. What he ended up with was the defect shown, which is 'honeycomb checking'. If we'd known that going to be patentable, and considered to be a 'benefit', we might have done so, and made some money. As it is, it just ruined some nice curly maple.

Author:  Mark Groza [ Thu Jan 06, 2011 4:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Increasing wood density with microwaves

By heating the wood with microwaves and makeing it limber, it can be compressed with pressure to be made stronger and more dense when it cools. They do this with lumber to make weak wood useable that otherwise would be useless.A Japanese researcher Yoshinori Kobayashi of the Nara Prefecture Forest Experiment Station has patented a technique to "cookandcompress" raw logs to shape them into square frameing timbers yielding wood that is denser and hence stronger. The logs are cooked at 212 degrees F until the lumber becomes limber, then compresses driveing out moister. When they cool, the logs retain there square shape and are more dense and very strong.

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