Ask Terry McInturff anything that you want to...right here

[Terry McInturff]

The question is do cracks form from ice crystals driving cells apart, or do they form from different parts shrinking at different rates, leading to pulling apart/separation.

My concern is cracking resulting from rapid dimensional changes.

 

[Deed_Poll]

You are welcome Dan! What is the moisture content of the wood right now?

Oh I don't have the wood yet. I'm playing with a few ideas for future projects and have a tendency to make things as logistically difficult for myself as possible!

Ben, you raise some good points as well. I'm just wondering if there's an easy way I can test this without having to build a whole guitar and find out when it snaps!

Thanks for all the advice. I'll definitely be checking back here often, best thread ever!

 

[Terry McInturff]

Oh I don't have the wood yet. I'm playing with a few ideas for future projects and have a tendency to make things as logistically difficult for myself as possible!

Ben, you raise some good points as well. I'm just wondering if there's an easy way I can test this without having to build a whole guitar and find out when it snaps!

Thanks for all the advice. I'll definitely be checking back here often, best thread ever!

If you are going to build, a moiture meter is a basic must-have. The Mini Lignomat is fine.

 

[Jim DaddyO]

I agree that this is a great thread. I am wondering about the "freeze dry" method and would be concerned about case hardening the wood.

I also think that wood will try to stabilize to the surrounding environment as far as moisture goes, so unless it is completely sealed it will absorb and release moisture as the humidity changes.

I am not stating this as fact, but as a question. I would like to know if any of these concerns are valid. After you get wood to a certain dryness, I would think going any farther would be a case of diminishing returns.

It also brings up another thought of baking the wood in an oxygen free environment as they are doing with some maple fretboards. As I understand it, the method changes the pores of the wood so it no longer absorbs moisture from the air. Is this true? and if it is, would it not be a better way to go than freeze drying?

I hope I am contributing to clarification and not muddying the waters.

 

[Terry McInturff]

I agree that this is a great thread. I am wondering about the "freeze dry" method and would be concerned about case hardening the wood.

I also think that wood will try to stabilize to the surrounding environment as far as moisture goes, so unless it is completely sealed it will absorb and release moisture as the humidity changes.

I am not stating this as fact, but as a question. I would like to know if any of these concerns are valid. After you get wood to a certain dryness, I would think going any farther would be a case of diminishing returns.

It also brings up another thought of baking the wood in an oxygen free environment as they are doing with some maple fretboards. As I understand it, the method changes the pores of the wood so it no longer absorbs moisture from the air. Is this true? and if it is, would it not be a better way to go than freeze drying?

I hope I am contributing to clarification and not muddying the waters.

Its all good conversation!
As regards drying mahogany...why not use the same methods that have worked for hundreds of thousands of stringed instruments for countless years?
Having said that one concept of note is the baking or vulcanising of wood. But this is not a drying technique per se'

 

[Deed_Poll]

If you are going to build, a moiture meter is a basic must-have. The Mini Lignomat is fine.

Thanks for the tip!

All this talk of vulcanising is very interesting. It makes me think of cricket bats, made of willow, where even after you buy it and take it home you have to 'knock it in', which is a process whereby you repeatedly knock the surface of the bat with a hard cricket ball hundreds or thousands of times before you play with it. This helps anneal the surface into a much harder skin on the relatively soft heart of the bat. I think Gil Yaron might have been going for something like this with his 'bone' guitar, whereby he fits a paulownia core in a mahogany shell.

I remember looking at a piece of charcoal under a microscope, where everything is gone but a carbon skeleton of the cell walls remains and thinking, if that wasn't so brittle it would make a cool guitar material!

Apologies for the digression

 

[garyrogue]

Hum, I wonder how ice slivers are avoided when drop temp, even that fast to get to triple point. Maybe minimalized formation so less cell damaged. I guess could still damage "dead" wood structure and as Ben mentioned the differences in coefficients of thermal expansion of different wood internal structures. I guess I kind of said nothing. Just pondering.

I believe what Terry said, "why not use the same methods that have worked for hundreds of thousands of stringed instruments for countless years?".

If you have enough wood it might be an interesting experiment If you have time and crazy interest. Rehydrate!

 

[muddy]

hey, i have a question; why DOES the porridge bird lay it's eggs in the air?


ml

 

[Terry McInturff]

hey, i have a question; why DOES the porridge bird lay it's eggs in the air?


ml

Why, so the guys in Pavement can have ready-made scrambled eggs waiting for them when they do a Phoenix show in August!

 

[Jim DaddyO]

New question:

If I go down to my local butcher, what do I ask for, and how do I prepare bone to make nuts?

 

[James Allen]

Terry, how does the neck contact in the pocket matter or affect tone or resonance?

Will changes with design or wood in that area make a noticeable change to the ear?

 

[Terry McInturff]

New question:

If I go down to my local butcher, what do I ask for, and how do I prepare bone to make nuts?

You'd want the densest bone of the animal but Ill be darned if Ive ever "harvested" my own bone, after all of these years. Google it, I suppose! Sorry I just dont know...

 

[Terry McInturff]

Terry, how does the neck contact in the pocket matter or affect tone or resonance?

Will changes with design or wood in that area make a noticeable change to the ear?

A great Q!
Acoustic or electric, the neck joint is very important as regards the resonance character of the chassis as a whole. Its important that the neck and body vibrate as a unit as freely as possible, and if there are air gaps or glue filled gaps, these act as an insulator..not what we want.

On a bolt-on, I like to see a joint that will hold the neck/body together sans screws (no string tension of course!) and the surfaces of neck pocket and neck be smooth and tight fitting.

The more substancial the joint is in terms of surface area, the better the mechanical coupling betwixt neck/body, too. In this, I may differ from other's opinions tho as regards the "long tenon" thing...to me, the most important part of the joint is that portion which occurs prior to the neck pickup route; the rather thin "foot" which extends into the neck pickup route IS of value, but to me...the more surface area prior to that route the better.

Another important aspect is the amount of upper neck that is supported by the body; a TCM Carolina for instance...being a single cut...supports the neck starting at the 16th fret. This encourages plenty of sustain and helps to defeat that notorious "dead spot" which is so common G string/12th fret area.

 

[Rod]

Hi Terry... I'm a big fan of your Carolina guitars... I was wondering if you'd ever considered doing a "studio" or simplified Carolina? IE.. same great woods and construction but no body or neck binding, plain maple top. Simple stain on top with clear satin sides and back
. Lower price....

 

[Terry McInturff]

Hi Terry... I'm a big fan of your Carolina guitars... I was wondering if you'd ever considered doing a "studio" or simplified Carolina? IE.. same great woods and construction but no body or neck binding, plain maple top. Simple stain on top with clear satin sides and back
. Lower price....

Well, at the outset I did offer the Carolina Standard...it was a bit more affordable....but my #1 dealer told me that everybody wanted the Carolina Custom!!!

So sure..Ive considered that.

 

[dicdanger]

Hi Terry,
Can you post which pickups/coils each position in the 5-way switch selects for the Taurus? Thanks

 

[muddy]

HA! a most excellent answer! we'll need to see some pix of that, though...


ml

Why, so the guys in Pavement can have ready-made scrambled eggs waiting for them when they do a Phoenix show in August!

 

[John Backlund]

Good morning, Terry.

I am curious! How do you think these P-90 soapbar pickups are mounted in this Dean Palomino hollowbody? What supports them in there? Thanks for any thoughts on this.

 

[John Backlund]

Did I kill this thread or what?

 

[anyone]

Did I kill this thread or what?

Nah, that's usually my job...

Looks like the rear pup is surface-mounted via the usual p90 mounting screws. The neck and middle are also mounted with p90 screws, so there must be some bracing or an extended neck block...

Cheers!