Official Luthiers Forum!

What is the issue with Titebond?

I've been keeping my eye on this stuff but like unkabob am waiting for it to have a bit of time testing out there in the wild. I might buy a few sets now and let them age in my shop for a while though

Fortunately for me I scored some very old spruce to work with for a while.

What do they do to 'modify' redwood? I just built a redwood topped dred from wood I got from LMI over a decade ago. I didn't think anything was done to it except to cut the tree down and resaw the wood. It was fine as it was. I have built with curly redwood and that was a nightmare in how brittle it was. That I'll never do again. If torrified is like that then...

I have yet to see a process for torrefication of spruce.

Furthermore, since cellulose chains in the wood are partially hydrolyzed and rearranged, residual strain in the wood is resolved and the degree of crystallinity increases. Therefore, a modified wood having a superior dynamic modulus of elasticity (E) and oscillation properties such as damping factor of oscillation (tan δ) can be obtained. The above change is similar to the change in wood which occurs with the passage of time of some hundred years, therefore, it can be said that the modified wood of the present invention is antiquated in the above treatment.

Moreover, since the wood becomes dark brown by the above modification and the contrast of grain is increased, the modified wood can be developed with a transparent and deep appearance while the coating step can be shortened.

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The high pressure steam contains a large amount of active species such as hydrogen ions, hydroxide ions, hydrogen radicals, and hydroxide radicals, and hydrolyzes cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin which are main components of wood. When wood is put under the above conditions, the above active species are impregnated into the wood with the steam, and subsequently, hydrolyze hemicellulose, partially repolymerize lignin, decompose amorphous portions of cellulose and rearrage the decomposed portion. Accordingly, residual strain in the wood is resolved, and the degree of crystallinity and the width of micells increases. As a result, the dynamic modulus of elasticity (E) increases and the loss angle (tan δ) decreases. Furthermore, since a part of the decomposed component and extracted component of the wood is removed with water, density (ρ) decreases.

Therefore, in the obtained modified wood, since sound conversion efficiency, which is described by the product of the sound radiation attenuation (external attenuation efficiency) and the inverse of the internal attenuation efficiency of the material, shown below increases, the modified wood can be used as a material for musical instruments having superior oscillation properties.

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Furthermore, as shown in FIGS. 14 and 15, the density tends to decrease. The maximum change is −8% density in spruce.

According to the high pressure steam treatment, the sound conversion efficiency of the wood is remarkably improved. The above change is similar to the change which occurs in the wood with the passage time of a few hundreds of years; therefore, it may be said that to produce the treated wood of the present invention is to make aged wood. As shown in FIGS. 16 and 17, EL/GLT tends to decrease, therefore, strength of the wood is increased. It is a characteristic after the high pressure steam treatment.

Change in Color

The light brown colored wood turned into a dark brown colored wood with a good appearance and deep color tone due to the high pressure steam treatment. Since the color of wood changes, the coating step is shortened and the contrast in the grains is increased to improve the value of the appearance of the wood.

The titebond issue may be related to the fact that it is a water-based glue. Some of the advertising on the web touts torrefication as a water-repelling process which prevents rotting in door frames. The same hydrophobic properties would tend to repel titebond, kind of like having wax or silicone on the wood surface. Hot hide glue should work but fish glue should give problems "if I am correct".

Maybe I should do a guitar treated and not...