[jdietrich]

Modern hand tool woodworking can match or exceed the accuracy of machine woodworking, albeit with a higher skill threshold. You can achieve very fine results with very basic tools. Machine woodworking is undoubtedly faster, however.

Tight tolerances are often completely counterproductive because of wood movement. Even with an impermeable polyurethane finish, you'll get significant seasonal movement. Effective fine woodworking is about designing to account for that movement - building drawer runners slightly undersized so they don't bind up, allowing door panels to float in the groove so they don't bow or split etc. One of the key skills of cabinet-making is developing an intuition for wood movement.

https://www.canadianwoodworking.com/tipstechniques/dealing-w...

[nemo44x]

What about torrefying the wood first? Wouldn’t this reduce the amount of movement in the wood?

[exDM69]

You can't really stop wood movement or even reduce the amount it moves. It can be slowed down a little with some finishes (then you have a "wood-plastic composite"). Kiln drying (do you mean this by "torrefying"?) will make the wood dry for a while, but when the temperature and (absolute) humidity will rise on the summer, the wood will absorb moisture from the air and expand and shrink again next winter.

[jdietrich]

Torrefaction (more properly, thermal modification) involves higher temperatures than kiln drying, causing chemical changes to the wood that result in permanently lower equilibrium moisture content and hygroscopicity. It improves the stability of wood and drastically improves the resistance of softwoods to decay, but it isn't a complete solution to wood movement. There is a significant tradeoff between stability and strength.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermally_modified_wood

[abakker]

It also changes the color, which in many cases is inappropriate for the project. However, if it were being painted I would definitely consider it. I bought some Torrefied ash recently - it's weird stuff. Kind of like working with toast instead of bread. the sawdust smells odd, too.

[nemo44x]

In the acoustic guitar world, torrefication has become popular for some guitars. The main idea is that the end result of the spruce (commonly used for top wood on an acoustic guitar) is closer to a piece of spruce that is many years old which affects the tone and "improves" it to some ears. The other benefit is the wood is less likely to crack which is an issue with acoustic guitars, especially in dry climates where humidification is an issue. Some say the wood is more resistant to cracking but more brittle in other ways which aren't too important to how an acoustic guitar applies tension. the main idea is the wood won't change with respect to humidity as much as untreated wood.

But yes, especially when luthiers started using this technique there were all sorts of issues with the end result in terms of superficial results/coloring. However, they've gotten better at this and now we see the wood being a bit darker but without all the other cosmetic issues from past years.

[jdietrich]

>The main idea is that the end result of the spruce (commonly used for top wood on an acoustic guitar) is closer to a piece of spruce that is many years old which affects the tone and "improves" it to some ears.

Torrefied tops can definitely make an instrument sound better. With the right thermal treatment, you get a slight increase in stiffness and a fairly significant reduction in damping due to the lower equilibrium moisture content and the depolymerisation of hemicelluloses. If the top is properly braced to account for the different properties, you get a more open-sounding instrument with more volume and/or sustain. Torrefied necks are substantially more stable, particularly for the flatsawn maple necks on most Fender-style electric guitars. The durability of tops is very much swings and roundabouts - you gain a fair bit of stability with respect to atmospheric changes, but the top becomes weaker and more brittle, so more prone to impact cracking.

>But yes, especially when luthiers started using this technique there were all sorts of issues with the end result in terms of superficial results/coloring. However, they've gotten better at this and now we see the wood being a bit darker but without all the other cosmetic issues from past years.

If anything, the caramel colour of torrefied maple or spruce has become a status symbol. We're starting to see a lot of roasted ash bodies on electric guitars and basses, which doesn't really do anything tonally but looks cool.