Anyone here own a Jackson Misha sig?

[Metal Mortician]

For comparison, I speak from experience that the Sire jazz bass I had with a roasted neck (V5R) had a coat of dark dye on it. I forget what I was doing, but I accidentally rubbed some off. Additionally, I removed the neck and inspected the neck bolt holes and found the coloration to penetrate on just a bare surface level. At the point of the first screw thread, it was pretty light maple. I didn't do any further surgery to find out whether it was pure dye or actually roasted in some capacity, but it had the most unstable neck of anything I've ever had. Still thought it was a tree. Sold it. The other 2 Sires I've had with non-roasted necks have been incredibly stable. Go figure.

Good point! Could probably just take off a tuner and look inside the headstock, too.

I still hold the belief ‘Roasted’ is nothing more than the same process as painting the necks of the ‘vintage’ series of Squiers a different shade of yellow.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Kyle Jordan]

Do they really claim that?

Yep. That's been one of the big selling points as far as I can recall.

It's another example of what was once a very pricise process done on a small scale by specialty builders and vendors is now being done on a very large scale using processes that maximize throughput.

Whenever quantity is the goal, quality on the per-piece basis usually suffers.

Exactly. I remember first hearing about the roasting when Anderson started doing their Chocolate Maple necks. Those are pretty dark and for a time, Anderson even offered those without a finish. I spoke with Tom himself about the benefits they were seeing vs lighter roasted maple.

Of course, guitarists being guitarists, many bitched about the look and when Suhr came out with their vulcanized maple that was lighter and looked more like typical maple, they put pressure on and thus Caramel maple from Anderson, and the lighter, less effective version becoming the norm.

Hell, I think the other other company I've even seen using the really dark roasted maple was ESP on some custom shop or showcase pieces years ago.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Yep. That's been one of the big selling points as far as I can recall.

Exactly. I remember first hearing about the roasting when Anderson started doing their Chocolate Maple necks. Those are pretty dark and for a time, Anderson even offered those without a finish. I spoke with Tom himself about the benefits they were seeing vs lighter roasted maple.

Of course, guitarists being guitarists, many bitched about the look and when Suhr came out with their vulcanized maple that was lighter and looked more like typical maple, they put pressure on and thus Caramel maple from Anderson, and the lighter, less effective version becoming the norm.

Hell, I think the other other company I've even seen using the really dark roasted maple was ESP on some custom shop or showcase pieces years ago.

Suhr has such faith in their process that John offered vulcanized necks without truss rods to some folks, and supposedly that's what he does with his personal instruments now.

John went as far as saying that he'd warranty them for the rest of his life.

I don't recall any having an issue and this was some years ago.

But yeah, Suhr and Anderson have a much more personal and direct handle on this stuff than the big OEMs.

 

[nightsprinter]

Suhr has such faith in their process that John offered vulcanized necks without truss rods to some folks, and supposedly that's what he does with his personal instruments now.

John went as far as saying that he'd warranty them for the rest of his life.

I don't recall any having an issue and this was some years ago.

But yeah, Suhr and Anderson have a much more personal and direct handle on this stuff than the big OEMs.

For science, I would love to see someone stress test that neck for a calendar year in a climate with 4 distinct seasons hanging on a wall in a home without central air/humidification/dehumidification support. That would make me a believer.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

For science, I would love to see someone stress test that neck for a calendar year in a climate with 4 distinct seasons hanging on a wall in a home without central air/humidification/dehumidification support. That would make me a believer.

In my experience there's no great determinate of how a neck will handle use, I've worked on multi-lam stuff with stiffening rods and all matters of supposedly "climate proofing", that were very temperamental, and plenty of thin single piece jobs that are rock solid.

When you make guitars on a small, one-off scale you can make sure that they're sound, at scale, you lose control of most factors.

If you want a solid neck, have it made by someone who cares.

 

[MetalDestroyer]

this thread is gonna make me buy another Anderson I swear

 

[adrianb]

f you just dehydrate it with heat, I would think that over time it will again take on water from the environment and behave the same as any other piece of wood.

It seems like the impression that people (me included) get is that the wood stays dehydrated forever (?), but what you said really does make sense -- unless maybe the piece of roasted wood gets sprayed with a finish or sealer or whatever.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

It seems like the impression that people (me included) get is that the wood stays dehydrated forever (?), but what you said really does make sense -- unless maybe the piece of roasted wood gets sprayed with a finish or sealer or whatever.

Proper torrefaction makes the wood hydrophobic, so it's not readily going to rehydrate.

Emphasis on "proper" of course.

 

[adrianb]

Proper torrefaction makes the wood hydrophobic, so it's not readily going to rehydrate.

Emphasis on "proper" of course.

Cool, i didn't know that. Off-topic but how are Warmoth roasted maple necks?

 

[nightsprinter]

I know you didn't ask me, but I have had 4 warmoth roasted maples.

I don't keep my partscasters in cases, and I currently have 2 hanging on the wall with one-piece warmoth roasteds. I have no dehumidification option in summer, and my relative humidity swings between 30% and 45% all winter which is the best I can do. I find the necks to be stable. I don't think I've adjusted them more than once in a couple years.

The only drawback I found are how brittle they can be. I was putting tuners on my first one and treated it like a regular maple neck when drilling pilot holes for tuner screws- 1 imperial size down. Bad idea. The headstock cracked right across when I put the screws in. I found that the proper way is to measure the shank of the screw and then go to a drill bit table and find the next size down in whole number size rather than fractional size down in a typical home drill index- i.e. if the shank measures 1/16- go get a size 53 bit for a pilot.

And of course, warmoth doesn't offer 2-way truss rods. Some people care about that, some people don't.

About the neck I botched, I got some CA wicked into the cracks and clamped it and it's been fine ever since.

 

[SalsaWood]

Partial torrefaction would also break down the lignin and hemicellulose, but leaving the cellulose itself and other high temp degrading polymer constituent molecules more or less in place with the non-polar(?) degraded molecules. I'm not a chemist or luthier so that's about as far as my comprehension can go. Sounds like a good idea if done correctly.

 

[MSS]

I bought 2 of these pros in 2018 to be my live guitars with a new band. I had heard the fretwork was terrible so I had them plek’d at Sweetwater where I bought them.

Both 5 ways failed pretty quickly. The electronics were total sh$t and the stock pups really sucked. The band never happened and both guitars sat in the closet until recently.

I just redid all the electronics and put new pups in. One is in drop a# and the other drop c. The drop a# one is pretty awesome now and I really enjoy it. Nice low action no buzzing. Invader/Sentient’s pups.

I could only get the relief to .009 (drop a#) and .012 (drop c) but when I got them the relief was.007 so I figure the extra string tension is my culprit here. OR maybe the truss rods suck like everything else that had to be replaced on these guitars.

 

[Metal-Box]

I had a JP16 with a roasted maple neck. It looked and felt amazing. I also have a HT7 and the neck doesn’t look nearly as roasted or caramalized. It feels great though.

 

[Kyle Jordan]

If you want a solid neck, have it made by someone who cares.

Some of the best and truest advice you'll find on the subject.

 

[jephjacques]

I've never had fret sprout on my roasted JP15s. There was a little on my Anderson (caramel maple) for a couple weeks this winter when the house got REALLY dry but it went away on its own.