Official Luthiers Forum!

It seems to be a generally accepted fact that as wood ages, the resins therein crystalize and harden, causing the wood to become stiffer. As is evidenced by vintage Martin guitars and the like, this process improves the sound of the instrument with age. Several enterprising luthiers cook their soundboards prior to building to accelerate this process with the hope that their instruments will have an edge, sound-wise, on their competition.

What I'd like to know, for reasons that I don't want to explain yet, is "Is there any way to reverse this aging process and de-crystalize the resins in a piece of wood to make it younger again?"

I don't think SuperSoft II does this, right? Does anything?

Regards,
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"

A little blue guitar pill, huh? Don't know about that.

But will it work on the luthier? That's what I want to know!

Joe

I suspect that the process is so complex on a molecular level that nothing short of a time machine would work.

If you starve laboratory rats they live longer, but don't get younger......

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It's not the miles ahead, it's the stone in your shoe


In Markham,Virginia

The aging process is not one you can change.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I'm mostly interested in the statement "for reasons i don't want to explain yet"...


hmmmm a MySterY??

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"Everyone wants to BE something, but nobody wants to BECOME something" - William Cumpiano

Perhaps some customers suppose a new guitar should sound like crap? Spraying some diluted super soft II inside might help...

If aging is defined by the hardening of resins then your could theoretically reverse this by adding back in something to soften the hardened resin. Solvents (alcohol or naphtha) would probably do that, but the effect would be temporary. Plasticisers would be more permanent, but it might be difficult getting them into the structure of the wood.

One way to test the solvent effects would be to do a deflection test of a piece of spruce, then soak it in thinner and retest.

The best article I've seen on what happens when wood ages didn't have much to say about resins crystalizing, and I have to wonder where that story got started. As wood ages the ratio of crystaline to amorphous material in it changes, but it's not because something amorphous crystalized, but because something amorphous evaporates.

The major structural components of wood are cellulose, which makes up about 50%, and equal parts of hemicellulose and lignin for the remainder. Cellulose is a striaght-chain polysaccharide, with a definite structure, and it does not degrade significantly over time. Lignin is the glue, and it's also pretty stable. Hemicellulose is a branched-chain polysaccharide, so it's amorphous, and acts more or less as a filler. Over time the 'loose ends' of the hemicellulose molecules break down, especially with exposure to humidity and heat cycling, into CO2 and H2O, and just go away. Iirc, the loss amounts to about 1%/decade, so it's not fast.

The loss of this filler material makes the wood less dense, and also less stiff, but the density drops off faster, so the overall stiffness/weight ratio goes up. One interesting thing that happens is that spruce, which is translucent when freshly cut, becomes opaque over time; the voids left by the hemicellulose loss reflect light in the same way the air spaces in a snow bank do.

I'm not saying this is the _only_ change that happens with wood over time; it's just the only one I've seen documented. I know that bulk resins, such as those found in pitch pockets, do tend to harden over time, but I don't think there's so much resin in the structure of most woods that it would make a difference. Maybe I'm wrong. I know that some woods, such as Eastern Hemlock, get really hard as they dry out and shrink, but I have to wonder how long that process goes on.

Yeah! de-aging wood! Thats your story. I think he trying to find formula for eternal life and just doesn't want us to know about it.

Rther than supersoft, how about a dilute solution of Viagra??

Think that's more of a technique for keeping the neck straight

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"Everyone wants to BE something, but nobody wants to BECOME something" - William Cumpiano

This is an unusual question.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

I don't know about reversing it, but can we stop it?



Now where do we inject the transcription factors?...

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Evan McCartney