Brian, on the sap stains, I really don't know. I sorted out over 300 tops to have treated, so don't remember much individually. Some other tops with sap stains sanded out completely, but these only about half.
The frets are about 0.055 above the board. They appear taller partly because of proportion...they are only 0.060 wide. All of this gives a different feel than standard (whatever that is) frets, but I kind of like it after playing a bit. They could be dressed lower, or I could have cut the slots a tad deeper.
I have been reading whatever I can find and looking at posts on other forums on thermally treated wood. Man, there is TONS of disinformation being passed around. Actually, so few people know much about the subject that most are just repeating what they have heard, sometimes second or third hand or more....and you know how that goes
I see lots of "so and so said this" or something similar, and then "so and so" says "no, I heard that from "x" who said "y" thought he heard it from somebody, but by now, it has become fact....Yikes. There was a post on the OLF where they were interviewing a guy from Taylor (part of those "tips du jour" things), and that guy just spewed total bullshit. And that is only the tip of the iceberg on the ficticious marketing hype. And the price gouging is criminal. I see folks asking $100 extra for a "torrefied" top. On cost, I will be totally up front with folks. The 350 or so tops I had treated basically cost me around $10 each, and most of that was my time. I actually paid $2.00 per top for the kiln time, but I did stack and unstack my own wood on the pallet (which took the better part of a day), and I think John did give me a bit of a price break. So, I would figure selling a treated top for $15 over the cost of non-treated, which I think is reasonable.I could rant for many more paragraphs, but will leave it for now. But don't hesitate to ask questions if you have them.
G
Well done Grant, and I'd like to add that I really enjoyed this thread, thanks for the time and effort! I'm just wondering now when you will do a guitar strung with shop made deer gut strings! 
