Okay, I now have my first experience with roasted tonewoods. A longtime client begged me to assemble one of his Warmoth projects. I finally relented.
My first surprise were the frets. I thought they were Jescar gold. Nope - the fingerboard was stained amber, and so were the frets. They polished right up to a nice sheen with a half-hour's elbow grease.
He had a roasted and chambered alder body, with a roasted flame maple neck. I expected the lightness, and I expected the wood to be trickier to work with. But I found that screws strip out so easily in this stuff.... the body and neck got the crumblies under any mechanical pressure. I hadn't even tightened down the first neck attachment screw yet and found that it had stripped the grain out of the hole. Yes - I checked the size of the hole, and did NOT drill it out larger. Yes - I lubed the threads of the screw. The first one went in easy as pie... and just kept turning, never even beginning to tighten up. I was using fingertip pressure on the screwdriver, I hadn't wrapped my meaty paw around the handle to apply pressure. The wood simply... yielded.
So I reinforced the 3 remaining holes with super glue, and then drilled and doweled the first hole with new maple. Anyway - it's cool now. Plays like butter, sounds great. Wilkinson vibrato set up to float, Lace Sensor Gold loaded pickguard, 1 7/8" wide at the nut with a compensated nut, self-locking StewMac tuners with Waverly buttons.
My first surprise were the frets. I thought they were Jescar gold. Nope - the fingerboard was stained amber, and so were the frets. They polished right up to a nice sheen with a half-hour's elbow grease.
He had a roasted and chambered alder body, with a roasted flame maple neck. I expected the lightness, and I expected the wood to be trickier to work with. But I found that screws strip out so easily in this stuff.... the body and neck got the crumblies under any mechanical pressure. I hadn't even tightened down the first neck attachment screw yet and found that it had stripped the grain out of the hole. Yes - I checked the size of the hole, and did NOT drill it out larger. Yes - I lubed the threads of the screw. The first one went in easy as pie... and just kept turning, never even beginning to tighten up. I was using fingertip pressure on the screwdriver, I hadn't wrapped my meaty paw around the handle to apply pressure. The wood simply... yielded.
So I reinforced the 3 remaining holes with super glue, and then drilled and doweled the first hole with new maple. Anyway - it's cool now. Plays like butter, sounds great. Wilkinson vibrato set up to float, Lace Sensor Gold loaded pickguard, 1 7/8" wide at the nut with a compensated nut, self-locking StewMac tuners with Waverly buttons.
Comment