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It's like a kind of sweet pipe smoke. Really nice. It was strong when I got the guitar earlier this year (2011 SG Jr) but then I lem oiled the fretboard and the smell faded. Now it's back.

Can anyone else smell baked maple? Is it just me?

Don't have teh baked maples my sg has teh rosewood.

smells like indictment

I baked maple in the oven. Read somewhere one dude said that you can bake maple in the oven. Decided to make some baked maple fretboards for me. Put two thin blanks of maple in the oven and set the temperature according to the instruction. 15 minutes later they started to burn, I took two curled and burning blanks of maple and threw them inside the bathtub, then in to the trash can. Apartment had smelled very nice for a week, like you were sitting somewhere in the forest next to open fire enjoying a warm summer day

Maybe the instructions were for °F and your oven is °C ?

The instruction was for F and I transfered them into C. Maybe my oven gives more than it is supposed to or maybe the guy gave wrong numbers

What year is that SG? It looks great. I never realised they used baked maple on any of these. I thought when Gibson were having wood issues (ooo missus) they were using Baked maple for ebony and that obeche stuff for rosewood? Tho lots of stuff from that ere say the fretboards were rosewood on the spec sheets.

Weird.

Thomas wrote:What year is that SG? It looks great. I never realised they used baked maple on any of these. I thought when Gibson were having wood issues (ooo missus) they were using Baked maple for ebony and that obeche stuff for rosewood? Tho lots of stuff from that ere say the fretboards were rosewood on the spec sheets.

Weird.

Specs sheets at the time said baked maple, and yes it was the replacement for Rosewood, but you can imagine a lot that being lost to the ether now due to casual guitar hobbyists not realising, coincidentally "forgetting", and also the window of baked maple being relatively short

Sounds like something I'd love to take a whiff of, looks like something Carl Barât would have on call at a gig in case a random vintage sunburst Melody Maker crapped out (no harm there).

In a very similar sense, modern Gretsch cases (And subsequently the guitars themselves) are by far my favorite guitar-based fragrances at the moment. They smell like something halfway between vanilla extract and bourbon-cured pipe tobacco, though some have said it's actually nothing more than the bond used in case construction.

Yep it's a much nicer smell now it's faded a bit. I can only assume this guitar was kept in a case from new and barely used. Can't see why, as it's really fun to play - super light and resonant. I've only tried a vintage '68 in comparison, and this one sounds much brighter. Is this because of the maple board or because the pickup is new, I really don't know. I think they only made the baked maple sg jrs in 2011.

Here's the skinny on baking the maple. The process requires baking in the absence of oxygen (which is why that wood burnt in the oven!) then Gibson inject some water back in... somehow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrefaction

my only gibson is a les paul bfg and it's rosewood.. i really want to love it.. i'm coming around to it lately. it sat for a while because i like fender's so much.. i love marc bolan and billy gibbons so i think i'll make myself play it more. might be good for the scott weiland comp.. hmm.

really handsome guitar tim.

sick sg, I thought you weren't supposed to use lemon oils on maple, nbd cause it's baked or is it all hogwash?

George wrote:Specs sheets at the time said baked maple, and yes it was the replacement for Rosewood, but you can imagine a lot that being lost to the ether now due to casual guitar hobbyists not realising, coincidentally "forgetting", and also the window of baked maple being relatively short

Yeah it can be really hard to figure out what was one some instruments from that time. Especially if the original owner doesn't know. Two of my SGs are from the time one model was transitioning to another and as such finding info on them when I was buying was difficult. Luckily Gibson are pretty on it with their records and matching the serial number to the specific spec, right down to the colour.

I want to sniff a baked maple board now...

I love the baked maple for necks and it's very stable. It looks great for fretboards too! For rosewood boards i tend to prefer a darker uniform color. I don't mind at all if companies dye their rosewood or ebony. I think the rosewood on my RGD might be dyed.

I've never had the pleasure of sniffing baked maple but most glossy Gibsons that were kept in cases also retain the sweet smell of the finish and polishing compounds (a sort of vanilla-like aroma) which could definitely be influencing the pipe tobacco impression. I can imagine a bit of cooked wood smell on top of that new gibson smell would remind me of that exactly.

They definitely used obeche on the singlecut Les Paul Jrs at one point, when they were doing them in Pelham.

I want a baked maple baked guitar. So jelly