Questions: Ossification of Guitar Soundboards

by Benz Tschannen

Originally published in American Lutherie #93, 2008

 

see also,
Questions: Ossifying Wood by Rick Rubin

 

Benz Tschannen from the Internet asks:

Reading the “Secrets of Stradivari” by Sacconi, I wonder if anyone has experimented with using the “ossification” process described in the varnish chapter on a guitar top and with what results.

 

Benz Tschannen from Fallon, NV provides an update to a question he asked in AL#89 about “ossification” of guitar soundboards:

I did some experimenting: Two pieces of spruce and two pieces of cedar, ≈2"×4"×.10", washed one each with a solution of sodium silicate, the other with water. Let dry, then coated with two coats of shellac each. After a year the result is inconclusive. Sometimes the silicate pieces seem higher pitched, sometimes the water washed ones do. The big change is in color: the silicate turns the spruce yellow and the cedar a darker brown. I don’t want to find out what it does to the colors of the rosette, so I am abandoning this quest for now. ◆