Be Careful When Adding Roasted Maple Guitar Necks. While there are
advantages such as being less expensive when no finish is required and
the fact that the roasting process brings out a beautiful caramel color
in the wood. There are drawbacks when adding a roasted maple necks.
“Roasted Maple” Necks May Have Issues…..
Remember the nature of a roasted maple neck is to be very brittle.
Therefore, look closer at the roasted maple guitar neck than you
normally do other necks, specifically the screw holes. It’s very
interesting but can be a difficult problem if you are not aware of the
characteristics of the roasted wood. Screw threads on the neck plate
screws can strip out in the neck holes. It’s caused by the roasted wood
being so brittle that the insides of the holes are much more prone to
strip out versus an standard kiln dried Maple neck. If you have ever
worked with 100 year old wood then you know what you’re dealing with.
Roasting ages and weakens wood significantly.
Roasted Maple Necks are Drier
Roasted maple necks
undergo a longer hotter drying process which involves heating the wood
to over 300 degrees. This removes more moisture from the wood. The
supposition, of course is that the wood becomes lighter and much less
susceptible to moisture and climate changes. It is also boasted that the
process stabilizes the maple. There is a marked color change to a
darker shade. I am not convinced it has the much touted, improved tone
and increased sustain. Show me the empirical evidence first.
The stripping of the brittle wood screw threads inside the holes of
a roasted maple guitar neck cause the screws to loosen their grip.
Strings will pull with lots of pressure when in tune and can cause the
screws to slip and the neck to pull away from the body-thus lifting the
strings off of the fret board.
This will cause higher action and make it much more difficult to
play. Soon you will be “Fighting with your guitar”, Eventually, the
action will to be way too high to play.
When I set it the action on this guitar
the last time before shipping, it was very low however the vibration
and bumping of travel plus the tension of string pulling can cause the
very slow release of the screw threads, screw slippage and thus higher
action.This is all very imperceptible at first but will accelerate over
time and causes lots of playing problems.
Haywire Custom Guitars – Custom Builds and the use of roasted maple necks
Mr. Rick Mariner Owner and Founder and CEO of Haywire Custom Guitars
Inc.
He is a member of The Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans
(A.S.I.A.) as well as a guitar player. Rick holds a bachelors degree
from University of Md.and a Masters degree from George Washington
University. Rick developed his exclusive 8 – Point “Gig- Ready” guitar
process that allows for Custom Guitars that are “GIG-READY”. With Rick’s
many years of development and guitar set-up experience, Haywire Guitar
shop “Builds satisfied players… one Haywire guitar at a time”.
