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Well, almost finished. The finish needs a bit more attention (I strung it up the day after the last coat with a brief leveling and rub down) and a few more details (side dots, etc.) and final setup and adjustment to do.

This intentionally has what I call my "vintage finish", thin and without a high gloss or total pore fill, so don't bee too critical.


This photo is a bit too yellowish


Compared to an older non thermally modified OM


Top


Back


Thermally modified HOG neck on right compared to non on left

This has been strung up for just over a week and finally has had a bit of playing. It started out louder than the older coco bodied OM (in above photo) and has a richer, more complex tone with more sustain. All of this continues to become more so. It is probably the loudest and richest sounding guitar I have built so far.

I will be starting a totally thermally modified Dread next.

Grant

OH, almost forgot.

African Mahogany back and sides
White Spruce top
HOG 1-piece neck
Koa bindings
Figured ebony fingerboard, bridge and peghead overlay
Hand made spring tempered phosphor bronze bar frets
solid laminated linings
All wood except the fingerboard, peghead overlay, linings, and binding is thermally modified...Thermowood process by Superior Thermowood of Minnesota.

Grant

Interesting.
Not sure if the colouring/streaking of the top would "catch on" (not that that's the object of the exercise necessarily) if that's typical of thermal modification. Is that the same species of top woods used on both?
Don't doubt your word about the guitar soundwise, but so may people (or buyers I have met and heard about) seem to buy on appearance rather than sound.
Interesting the comparison with a coco guitar, which I assume might be one of the louder species for B & S and probably sustain more than hog.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Nice. I like the look of the top...very vintage. Were the color changes part of the heat process? I've seen baked tops that darken but it was a pretty uniform color change, not streaky like that

I like the look of that top very much.

Actually, I used this top in this experiment because it would probably not be a saleable top. Sap stains do sometimes happen on thermally modified tops, but they almost always are on the surface and sand off. This one penetrated deeper and partially persisted after sanding (it was about twice that on the unsanded top). Only had this on about one or two tops out of 350 I had treated. Both of these tops are White Spruce, which is my go-to top wood. Similar to Red Spruce, but usually lighter in color and less dense.

Yes, the coco guitar (about 8 years old) has a very good tone and lots of sustain, and has been well played in, but it sounded rather "quiet" compared to this one newly strung up. And now they are even more different.

This is definitely an ongoing learning experiment.

I need to take another load of wood down to the Thermowood place next week, so I will be taking this along to show John (the owner of the Thermowood place). He is anxious to hear it.

Grant

Yes, how true. But my thoughts are that there are more than enough builders to keep those folks happy

Grant

Really like the vintage look Grant ..something different

Is Thermowood the company that had a fire in some of their buildings? I contacted them to inquire about doing some tops for me, but I haven't heard back from them. Will they treat small numbers of tops supplied by our forum members? Could you tell us approximately what it costs to treat each top?

Congrats! nice fiddle.

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Ken

Ken, yes, that's the place.

I was just down there on Monday (Took a load of wood down and showed them this guitar).

I talked specifically with John about doing tops for folks. Obviously doing one or two tops is kinda a PITA for them, but they can add small batches to a load. There obviously has to be some minimum fee, so I expect that anything under about 10 tops would cost the same total...there is a lot of handling. Right now, I think tops would run about $6 or so each. They do these in stacks of 5 or 6 sets with a "spoiler board" (can be a scrap top piece or something similar) on the top and bottom of the stack, so send something along. Stacks 2 to 3" thick work well. Another option would be to treat uncut billets. 2 to 3" thick billets treat well.

John put a small load of my stuff in yesterday, mostly brace wood, back billets, neck wood and some fingerboard and bridge blanks.







Also some stuff from one of the big companies and a couple of other builders.

I do understand that one of the sponsors here will be sending down a load of tops. I will let him fill in the details, but keep your eyes open.

Any questions, just ask. If I don't know the answer, I can ask John.

Grant