New Luthier Tips du Jour video - Accelerating break in

[jeffreyyong]

every guitar that comes out of my workshop including all those done by students will be given a good 'blowjob' of about 5mins each time for 3-5 times. it really loosen up the top tremendously within a short time after the strings are put on. Its like putting 100 of those tonerites on the Top. It may sound crazy or even idiotic to do this on a new guitar but it produces instant result! its doesn't cost a dime!

[hooked]

every guitar that comes out of my workshop including all those done by students will be given a good 'blowjob' of about 5mins each time for 3-5 times. it really loosen up the top tremendously within a short time after the strings are put on. Its like putting 100 of those tonerites on the Top. It may sound crazy or even idiotic to do this on a new guitar but it produces instant result! its doesn't cost a dime!

Hey Jeff, that's interresting. Can you explain the process of giving your guitars a "blowjob". I have all sorts of images floating around in my head but I'm sure they are all wrong in more ways than one.

Cheers

Daryl

[kiwigeo]

Another interesting topic is the ageing of timbers and it's possible effect on changing tone . Think of the deceased old master luthier falling off the perch and makers hovering around like blowflies to get their hands on the aged timber . Perhaps some amount of ageing can happen across a year or so of "playing In "
Has anyone come across studies that can quantify the mechanism(s) by which it happens ? Drivers of changing properties beyond simply removing the living trees moisture ? Evaporation of extractives , loss of volatiles , drying and crystalisation of resins and kinos , then the harder to quantify ones such as oxidisation and photosensitivity . Repeated moisture cycling would likely relax the cell walls , including reaction wood stresses from the trees own life in much the same fashion that playing would . Stiffness increases in the drying process of timber , plenty of good data to attest that , but what of stiffness relaxing again , particularly under load .
I've handled some verifiably 100+ year old timber across a range of species and then fresh milled and dried timber of the same . The difference is clear , that lovely powdery dry raspy , scratchy sound ..... Why ?
Pete

You make alot of valid and thought provoking comments. I notice on the Tonerite site they distinguish between "playing in" and "aging" of an instrument. With some hard facts and figures to prove same I could believe a device such as a Tonerite might accelerate the time taken to play in some instruments but I don't see how vibration could accelerate the aging process where the processes involved are most likely a complex brew of chemical and physical changes.