Official Luthiers Forum!

Just had a Gibson SG in the shop today with a torrified, maple fret board.

Excuse me please but the thing was butt ugly IMHO.... The board looked like a piece of camp fire wood that had been worked.... Made me hungry for roasted marshmallows....

Yes, but did it have better tonal qualities?

Only way to get that smokey tone...

Glenn

Don't get me wrong here please in so much as my opinions that follow are not to take away from the possibilities that torrification has value elsewhere, I don't know.

But it was pretty clear that the torrified maple fretboard had nothing to do with tone - it was an effort to get the cost out of a product, the SG.

This SG was very low-end for Gibson with lots of things done or not done to get costs of production out. As such this model is a pretty inexpensive offering from Gibson.

So the board, maple was obviously employed to be a less expensive alternative to say ebony. I seriously doubt that "tone" had anything to do with the decision to use torrified maple in place of more traditional fret board materials.

Then on the other hand we have Martin and perhaps a few smaller builders who seem to be offering torrified tops with the pitch being "vintage tone."

As an old dog marketeer here it's interesting to me, at least...., that the technology (not sure that technology is the right word since man kind discovered fire how long ago...) is being marketed from both ends of the value spectrum. We find torrified materials on cheap stuff and also high-end stuff with the benefits seemingly applicable to either.

Since the weather is getting better maybe it's time to find out for myself. Build a big bon fire in the back yard, get a vacuum container large enough to put one of my entire guitars in it, pump out the oxygen, and roast the sucker. Should I detune and take the string off first? Don't try this at home please....

But seriously if it is the case that some manufacturers are marketing this process and what results as a cost saving activity and others are marketing it as high-end and an approach to getting vintage tone with money, not time.... the two approaches seem to be contrary to me.

Another example of this that I just thought of is "double sides." Lots of very talented builders may offer double sided instruments and some of the builders can command prices at the top of the charts. OTOH cheap imports have for years been built with "laminated sides" as a cost savings effort on the part of the f*ctory. Confusing eh?

With the cheap imports you won't see advertisements extolling the virtues of laminated sides and with the high-end Luthier built instruments you may see marketing efforts extolling the virtues of double sides.

Looking at Gibson's marketing stuff for this model of SG they are not highlighting in terms of benefit to the client torrified fret boards on dumbed down, lower-end models. Go to Martin and read about instruments with torrified tops and they most certainly are marketing the process as a value-add worthy of commanding a higher price.

Which is it?

"Which is it?"

Both.
Plywood bodied guitars had some advantages for importers in addition to being "cheap". It allowed them to build instruments with greater dimensional stability. Inexpensive instruments generally live a hard life in the hands of beginners. Laminated sides allow builders to make the ribs thicker and less resonant. Some builders prefer this over the typical thin solid wood ribs.
I don't know why Gibson torrifies fretboards - maybe it adds some dimensional stability similar to the advantages of plywood bodies, and the marketing department needs an angle to push a "butt ugly" product. Torrified soundboards may be in the same boat, or they may offer new builders an opportunity to use "aged" wood rather than waiting for it to become "Hansified" in the natural fashion. For this amateur luthier, by the time some of my tops are aged for 30 years I will only be fit for nuts and saddles.

Good one, Haans.
I am also sceptical at the ecological label they have posted all over the webpage of the company Alex linked to.
What is ecological about using all that energy to heat wood just to change the colour? Walnut husks do the same thing.
Sorry, nothing to do with guitar making.

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

I'm sure a certain amount of torrified wood is just "smoke"

Per Hesh- Another example of this that I just thought of is "double sides." Lots of very talented builders may offer double sided instruments and some of the builders can command prices at the top of the charts. OTOH cheap imports have for years been built with "laminated sides" as a cost savings effort on the part of the f*ctory. Confusing eh?

With the cheap imports you won't see advertisements extolling the virtues of laminated sides and with the high-end Luthier built instruments you may see marketing efforts extolling the virtues of double sides.


I did my first double side OM because a guy gave me some flatsawn Koa to make him an instrument and I was worried about stability. It sounded great so I decided to try it on others.

My double side guitars seem to have impressed my little group of professional players that I bounce my new builds off of as well as myself. They do affect the tone and the consensus in my world appears to be for the better. After reading Trevor's book and seeing the effect of adding mass to the sides relative to the vibrational patterns of the top I am assuming it is the extra mass.

A luthier built double side is a different animal compared to a cheap laminated import as they are just one factor in the million little things that experienced builders use to get their signature sound. I've become a fan and have come to view them as more than just a marketing gimmick.

I don't plan to try the new tops until they have been out in the real world a few years but I'm glad we have people that are willing to take some risks and experiment. We don't make much progress without failures.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

The torrified maple fretboard is an effort to darken the wood throughout its full thickness, where a dyed maple fretboard would quickly show light area from wear. It's being used on inexpensive models because it reduces costs(compared to the ever-rising cost of ebony and rosewoods), and torrfified spruce is used on premium models because it adds cost.

I would also expect that the temperatures used to treat the maple will be higher than that used to "age" spruce...

I can almost certainly guarantee that. I would be quite surprised to learn that T-horrified wood makes an instrument sound "vintage".
A builder knows when his guitar sounds good. At that stringing up point, the top is 1 day old. What counts is after day 1. There are so many complexities to guitarmaking that to say that the top is what did it is next to ludicrous.
Yes, a very old top may have some vintage vib to it, and may rapidly gain a more vintage vib, but I have built lots of guitars and mandolins with 5 year old spruce that come around in a year or two.
To insist that a process will turn a top on a finished guitar into an instant 60 year old vintage instrument is in my opinion, BS.
But then, that's my opinion, I have all the tonewood I need, and don't need more with "special properties".

"To insist that a process will turn a top on a finished guitar into an instant 60 year old vintage instrument is in my opinion, BS."

Agreed, and there are a lot of 60+ year old instruments that don't have that "vintage vibe". They built a lot of dogs back then too.

Sure, but if one follows their normal build protocol, you should get a sense of what the different top does for the sound, same as there is a difference between Sitka/Engelmann/lutz/adi/cedar, same as one can tell the difference between mahogany and rosewood in the build. And can tell the difference between a rosewood or ebony fingerboard. To say that the top doesn't make a difference makes no sense to me.

I can see skepticism as to making it sound like a vintage guitar right off the bat, and
I share that skepticism. But that's not why I am interested.

I am interested to see if there is another tool to use to modify tone to intent. I don't care if it sounds vintage or not, but I want to know if it will sound/respond different. Same as I've built with Sitka, lutz, Engelmann, adi, and cedar, to get to know what they do to a guitars sound. One day I'll add carpathian and German to the stable as well, just to put more tools in the box.

So, yeah, a torrefied top for 135$ is a bit steep, but not out of line for decent adi in the first place. I can hardly wait to get me some!

Well, I sure hope you like it Mikey!

Me too! But if I don't, I'll know it...

At NAMM earlier this year, I acquired a nice flame maple board that had been torrified.
I liked the darker look and it seems really hard - it rings like a bell.
I'll try making a couple of acoustic necks from it and report my findings later.
I'll take a piccy of it and post here also...

Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

The obvious reason for Gibson to be developing domestic alternatives for fingerboards is their run-in with the US government which resulted in the confiscation of legal Indian RW.
They also laminated some bridges and fingerboards from Indian RW back and side stock.

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John