# Roasted maple -- information on process



## Furnitude

I just discovered roasted maple thanks to a mention in Fine Woodworking. Does anyone have information on the process of roasting maple? I read that the wood is kiln dried to 4% then heated at 360 degrees F for four hours. The carmelization goes through the whole board. Is this something I can do in a regular oven? Has anyone ever tried this?


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## jdmaher

From a brief Google search, no, you probably can NOT do this at home. The high temp process includes establishing a vacumn in the oven - which would not be easy at home.

It appears that this process is usually performed in order to improve the dimensional stability of the wood for such applications as guitar necks. But is sure is pretty!


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## Nomad62

I tried it once, but the taters and carrots stained the wood.


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## WoodYard

Basically, at the end of the kiln drying process they crank the heat up and bake it for 2 days. It was discovered while trying to find a stablized wood for a sauna door. It makes the wood rot and bug resistent and it does not move. It aso turns it chocolate in color which I hear is becoming popular with the housewives.


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## shawnmasterson

I bet hard as a rock to.


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## shampeon

Gibson has started using roasted maple for fretboards, after getting into hot-water with improperly imported east-Indian rosewood. I don't really like the look for fretboards, but that's just me.


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## crank49

I never heard that Gibson was actually convicted, just accused. There is a big difference.

The settlement of the case, as I understand it.

.
July 26, 2012

Donald Carr
William M. Sullivan, Jr.
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
2300 N Street, NW Washington, DC 20037-1122

Re: United States v. Gibson Guitar Corp., et al

Gentlemen:

Enclosed please find the case-closing letter sent today by this office to SAC Nicholas E. Chavez, Southwest Region I U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, memorializing the conclusion of the Government's investigations into potential Lacey Act criminal charges against Gibson and its current or former officers, directors, employees or agents. Your clients and the affected individuals may consider this to represent a final disposition of any and all potential enforcement actions related to the issues described in the case closing letter.

Very truly yours, 
JERRY E. MARTIN
United States Attorney


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## shampeon

Michael: A good summary of the final agreement is here:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/a-closer-look-at-gibson-guitars-legal-troubles/?_r=0

Basically, Gibson paid a fairly big fine, lost a large shipment of ebony, got its rosewood back, and agreed to tighten up it's import practices in exchange for having the charges dropped.


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## oldwoody

After a similar situation as yours I did some google work and found some information on roasting: wood is brought to 4% water content then heat at 360F for 4 hours. So….I have an oven and thats an invitation to try this.

BEFORE: 









1. Material is 1-1/8 thick maple with great figure.
2. Heated oven , convection for the culinary folk here, to 360 F
3. Baked for 4 hours…definitely want the windows open and the fan on!
4. Final color is awesome!

At no time did I feel the wood was in danger of combusting, the smoke was minimal. It never set of the smoke alarm in my kitchen. Wife did want to know what I was cooking when she came home!

Leaves a great color throughout and better yet SMELLS really good!

After:









Closeup:


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## macatlin1

Wood high temperature tooling

A few years ago we needed to make some tooling for curing composite parts at 350 degrees for 16 hours. Normally such tooling is made from steel or composite cast from a inverse tool made from a low temperature material. We didn't have time or material to go through either process. So we made the tooling out of wood. Even though Machineries Handbook says that pine can go to 800 degrees and oak 900 degrees, our safety people said we needed testing to demonstrate that the wood wouldn't burst into flame. We ran pine at 600 degrees for 3 hours and yes it smells and gets a beautiful color. Since we couldn't use glue all the parts were assembled with dowels. All the wood was precooked to drive out moisture and to solidify the resin. To mould the part we vacuum bagged the tool and then put a vacuum bag over the layed up part. The part came out acceptable with only surface touch up where it picked up the wood grain through the first bag.

I wish I had known that this created desirable characteristics as I would have started my own "bakery" and retired sooner!


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## mporter

OldWoody,
Did you take the wood down to 4% in the oven first?


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## crank49

Nomad62, I bet after 4 hours at 360 degrees the gravy wasn't fit to eat either ;^)


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## rrww

macatlin1,

Did your project specify no glue to be used or was there problems with the wood glue sticking to the baked wood?

Thanks


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## HorizontalMike

OldWoody,
How about another image AFTER you have worked the 'roasted maple'? I would love to see how that caramelization comes through.


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## oldwoody

The wood was originally air dried for one year at the Amish Mill I use. So I did not bring it down to 4%, nor check its value. I am preparing to work some of the material tonight and will post updates on conditions and pictures as I proceed. I plan to make some cutting boards by curve sawing and replacing strips of veneer between the slices…..should be interesting


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## jap

oldwoody, thanks for sharing.


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## Furnitude

Oldwoody, you're my hero! Very cool that you tried this. I'll try it, too. It really brings the figure out. I wonder how it would do with quarter sawn white oak…


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## oldwoody

So here is what I have found so far: after jointing, planing and cutting….the color is all the way through the material. It machine as nicely as the other piece of soft maple before baking. I have a jig yo make and will probably mix the original and the baked wood in a cutting board/trivet set.

Here is a picture of a piece before and after the baking. The baked piece has been S4 machined.


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## jap

Wow!


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## joeyinsouthaustin

I was introduced to the process in bamboo. It is quite pretty there as well.


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## Furnitude

That's amazing. I love the do-it-yourself spirit of this. You don't need a vacuum kiln and special equipment-just an oven, a patient spouse, good ventilation and possibly a fire extinguisher.


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## HorizontalMike

Wow! I just learned something new. Now if I can apply it to some larger maple lumber without burning the house down….


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## nwbusa

I've used roasted maple in a few of my projects posted here, and have a couple hundred BF of it out on the racks. It's nice stuf, easy to work with. Weighs a bit less than plain maple, and sometimes acts a bit more "brittle" for lack of a better word. Sawdust is very fine and tends to stick to blades, bits, etc. Smells nice when cut!


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## JustJoe

That is awesome - I will be trying this at home. Did you just throw it on the center rack or a cookie sheet or ??
Were there marks on the bottom where it sat on whatever it sat on while in the oven?


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## palaswood

Great post - Im interested to try this, I have a nicely figured semi-curly maple board I discovered in the stock at HomeDepot one day and brought it home. How can you figure out the moisture content of the wood?

I bought it at least 4 months ago and its been sitting in my garage, I would assume drying all the while.

Can I estimate it based on a formula or something?


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## Furnitude

Ok, here goes my first attempt at roasting. Wood is in the oven. I'll report back in a few hours.


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## Furnitude

I roasted some maple yesterday and got mixed results. I learned a few things in the process. The color of the underside-toward the heating element-was nice, roasty brown. It was almost a little too roasty for my comfort. The other side was much less brown and more gray. I wasn't happy with that. First, the wood I used was much thicker than what OldWoody used. Mine was about 2 1/8" thick, where his was 1 1/8" Also, I didn't use convection. I did have the oven at 360 degrees F and left it in for 4 hours. I never saw any smoke at all-not even a whisp. You could definitely smell the wood though. I had the oven's vent fan going the whole time and that helped. I want to be able to roast thick boards, so I might try a lower temperature and longer roasting time. I'll definitely use convection for even heating. I might even put a cookie sheet on the lower rack to shield the wood from the heating elements.

Here are some photos of both sides of the roasted board compared to an unroasted piece from the same board:


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## kiefer

I have used ROASTED MAPLE for several years now and buy it at Windsor Plywood here in Canada .
It is a nice accent wood but somewhat soft and brittle and has a burned wood smell when cutting on the table saw .
The process used to make it is called heat treating and is used to make deck lumber rot and insect resided as one example .It is used in Europe instead of treating wood with chemicals and not only on maple but several other woods .
There is a lot of info on this subject on Google.
I include a project that has roasted maple as a accent 
http://lumberjocks.com/projects/89548
I sure like the colour of this deep brown wood and it is a relatively inexpensive .


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## Shanem

I made a wood fired pizza oven last year. It slowly cools down after the fire is out. The inside dimensions are 32" wide, 40" deep and 16" high….. I'm going to have to try this after my next cook up. Wonder what roasted walnut would be like?


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## Violentlee

I realize this is an old post but I couldn't resist getting in on this, even if I am a little late to the party. I've been seeing all this talk about maple and the one person who asked about walnut. So has anyone used any other woods, domestic and/or exotics? I have a lot of lacewood and and would be curious what that would look like as it already has a VERY distinct figure to it.

Another thing I've been wondering is could same effect be accomplished with an electric smoker, obviously using just for the heat Nd not the smoke. I have one that doesn't get on to 360*, but I could just as easily roast is for longer times. Just thinking out loud…

Thanks!
Vance


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## Furnitude

Vance,
I'm going to be writing an article about this technique soon. You can use different woods but they will all have different effects, as far as I know, because they have different sugar content. I have roasted cherry and it worked well. It has an ebonizing effect on the wood. I say do an experiment with the lacewood and show the pictures here. Regarding the smoker, I have no idea if it would work or not. my most successful attempts have been getting the wood to the 360 degree temperature and holding it there for four to five hours. I"ve noticed some effect after three hours but the color doesn't change much. it actually turns a bit more gray, which doesn't look so great. five hours has been the magic time for me. the wood gets very roasty. good luck and keep us posted.
mitch


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## Violentlee

Well, if 360 is one of the magic benchmarks, the smoker is out; 275 is my max. Ill have to test this one day when the wife isn't home. She's not too keen on experimenting like this. I my still see what the smoker can pull off. I can see why the temp matters if it comes down to turning the sugars in the wood. I'll be sure to post any test results.

Thanks for the response!
Vance


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## Joe11

The maple starts to twist for me if I have it in for 2-3 hours.


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## Heilander

!

latest wood-turning magazine goes through the whole process.Very intriguing,must try it


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## Joe11

Anywhere I can read the article online?


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## McCullough98

i dont really know how allthis forums work but i was wondering if you could use a ceramics kiln to get roasted wood?
thanks


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## ibewjon

Are you using an electric oven? I am thinking that a gas oven with an open, although shielded flame, may not be a good idea?


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