For this reason, going slow will make or break the success of the project. It has spent years and years as a tree and only know one shape. The wood needs to be convinced to become a guitar. To be successful, we must soften the wood for bending. For guitar making we want dry wood it has many useful properties. If it is too green than it will compress while in use and shrink. It is brought down to a moisture content that makes the wood workable. The drying process makes the wood usable. When the wood still has a high-water content, it’s considered “green”. Next the wood is sawn into usable boards and then kiln dried. Once that twig dries out it will snap when bent. This is because it is both well hydrated and there is little lignin present, making it less rigid. We can twist it and turn it into a circle. If we take a small branch, it will bend with no trouble. The internal moisture content is set at this point and it can only go down. Once the tree is chopped down It stops this process.
The moisture content of the wood is at its most here. It dissipates the heat created by the growth of new cells. While it’s growing the roots suck up water from the ground. A tree can be 100 to who knows how many years old. A branch of the tree however contains a smaller amount of lignin because it is fighting gravity to grow and doesn’t need the added strength.Īs a tree ages it goes through many stages. This makes sense as the base of the tree must be stronger because it holds more weight. Lignin doesn’t absorb water easily and makes it possible for it to be wicked to the necessary cells.Īt the base of a tree there will be higher percentage of lignin to the other components. It is interspersed between the cells and links the cellulose together adding strength and support. The last one, lignin, is responsible for the strength of the tree. They run perpendicular to each other making a dense gird. The first two absorb water easily and form the structure of the tree. Wood is composed of three main parts, cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin.
One uses water and clamps and the other uses a steam blanket and an adjustable Fox bending machine. This article shows two methods uaws in the shop to bend wood for guitars. The heat and moisture function to soften the wood, making it flexible. The 135 has a thin "shredder's neck" and is tung oiled koa, so it is very susceptible to atmospheric changes and needs adjustment every spring and fall, and the tuning needs to be watched when going from heat/humidity to cool/air conditioning (more so than my Strat, Gibson, Brian Moore, or even the poly coated, thicker necked DC-400).īoth are great playing guitars, and the right pickups (stock or replacement, depending on your taste) make them pretty hard to put down.A common question is “how do you bend wood”? The simple answer is with steam. And the active/passive electronics package really shows the Duncan p/u's off well.īoth guitars are very solid and easy to play.
#Sending wood to carvin guitars series#
The M series pickups were higher gain pickups with "so-so" dynamic expression, and a bit "hi-fi" sounding, which worked nicely with higher gain, but lacked something to my ears in lower gain settings. I replaced the M series pickups with a Duncan Pearly Gates neck and Custom Custom bridge, and the improvement in tone character was night and day. Other than that, they are fine guitars (maybe its time for Carvin to switch suppliers.). Replaced it with the active/passive circuit and THAT switch is also giving me problems. My DC-400 had a bad switch on the original active electronics circuit board. As I've customized the pickups/electronics, I've replaced all 3 just to be on the safe side. My DC-135 had the 3 individual pickup on/off switches, and 1 of them failed after about a year. I've had problems with their switches on both my guitars.