Canberra Modal Tuning Course

[Dominic]

Thanks Trevor,

A brief summary of what I have gleened so far. Does not seem to be anyone in those threads who are measuring the impact of baking tops apart from weight loss. There may have been some hard data somewhere, I have not found it yet. And most of the analysis of post baked tops is not rigorous. But there are a lot of ideas about the best heat and time range. This is what I meant by optimising the baking. But again, it depends what you think is happening.

Some were saying you only needed to go up to 100C (212F) the boiling point of water and for as long as it takes to get the plates to close to zero water content. Maybe an hour. Fair enough. And this heat collapses cell making the wood denser and with less water holding capacity.

Others were saying a longer slower baking that will still drive off most of the water but also harden resins, with an outside quote of 36hours at 160F. There was a lot more reading and lots of opinion to go through. But I am going to start collecting El Ec and Glc in before and after baked tops plus measuring how baking impacts on future water absortion and release. And how stable is the cooked plate. Should be interesting.

Cheers
Dom