Announcement, Torrefaction: What is it & why you may want it

What is it?

Torrefaction is the careful process of heating wood in an environment which is completely free of oxygen. This procedure aims to remove oils, pitch, sugars and other volatiles found within the woods.

Its aim is to make the wood significantly stiffer, lighter and to vibrate with more efficiency than woods which are comparatively untreated.

The result is a guitar with torrefied wood shares a great deal of characteristics with wood that has been naturally "cured" for many decades.

The ultimate benefits of torrefaction should begin and end with the sound produced from the guitar. When receiving a new guitar that's gone through torrefaction, it should already be sounding like an older instrument straight out of the box. This means fuller tone, richer dynamic range with more depth and pronounced volume. As a plus, the torrefaction process gives the guitar a roasted gold appearance that you may see on older or vintage guitars.

With the careful elimination of volatiles and oils, without damaging the structure and strength occurs within a range of temperatures and duration of treatment that varies with wood species. The delicate window for optimum treatment and successful results is relatively narrow, but carefully skilled experimentation with different torrefied woods can simulate between 50 and 100 years of natural ageing.

Why you may want it.

There are 17th century string instruments that are still in very active service, and that guitars manufactured in the 1930's still sound good enough and are bought with staggering sums of money. Thus, it seems reasonable that contemporary modern made guitars constructed with torrefied wood can last through the lifetime of its original owner and beyond.

Properly and expertly torrefied wood used in conjunction with well-engineered designs, can produce guitars that are strong, attractive but importantly great sounding.

You should not expect anything to break or come apart on a guitar that has been through a torrefaction process either. The expected change with torrefied guitars is to sound better and better with ageing.