Hardening burl/spalt wood?

Serratus

I just want some experiences from guitar builders who have hardened burl or spalt.

I have a nice buckeye burl book-matched top, and it's a bit soft, so I would like to harden it before building.

So has anyone used thin superglue? Or shellac? Or any of the rotten wood hardeners?

I want to spray nitro lacquer over it so I guess some of the hardeners might not react well to nitro either?

Anyway, anyone done it successfully?

octatonic

What is its providence?

Has it been properly seasoned?

Serratus

Yes, it's properly dried, etc, it's just quite light and soft compared to most hardwoods you would use on a guitar.

WezV

I have used spalt a fair few times now and have used a few bits that had patches that were practically spongey.   I used a lot of thin superglue, horrible process and I am not totally convinced it penetrates all the way through

having just repaired an old window with some rot hardener last week I would be tempted to give it a bath in that stuff neck time.   you will still need to think about filling any voids, good quality epoxy and some dye works well for that

lots of cellulose or shellac sealer before any nitro top coats touch it and it will be fine

Serratus

I know someone else who uses superglue so that seems like the most common method.

He also mentioned that he tried a rot hardener but found that it left a sticky residue that was a nightmare to get rid of, so I don't really want to try that unless someone else has tried a specific product successfully.

Seems like superglue is the most likely thing to use. And I have plenty for cellulose sanding sealer so I'll just hit it with lots of that before lacquering (thanks for the advice Wez).

boogieman

Calling @timmyo. Pretty sure he used the superglue treatment on a spalted maple top.

TimmyO

Yes I stabilised a very soft/flakey spalted maple body using superglue.

I found that you can buy it in big pots (rather than lots of 5ml tubes :-) ) and that when you buy it like that there are different thicknesses - I think I went for medium or thin rather than the thickest on offer (apologies I don't seem to have any bookmarks from back then)

It worked extremely well and the resulting finish stood up to my hamfisted sanding perfectly well.

There are a couple of pics on the blog I did : http://100poundguitar.blogspot.co.uk/

Jaden

I have used thin superglue and also used it with that special powder that mixes with it to fill large cavities or voids.