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| Thanks for the helpful comments many of you are provividing on my guitar quest. I see that in the 5-10K range, I have a pretty wide selection of woods. Someone, I believe it was on this board, brought up a sort of, excuse the expression, ethical issue. Madagascar and Brazilian Rosewood look incredible. Obviously, Rosewood has a great monetary and acoustic sound value on the back and sides of guitars. Do you find the use of such woods, if in such short supply, objectionable for your personal use? Any problems for YOU to buy a guitar with such wood? Not looking to have anyone cast stones upon anyone else. Just your opinion for yourself.
Once again, just searching out opinions and thoughts. Thanks. |
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Location: SoCal | The legitimate luthiers who offer these woods have to jump thru incredible hoops to get them. They are, by and large, very careful to stay on the right side of the law.
So, no, I don't have any problem using these woods.... |
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Location: Atlanta GA | No issue at all providing the wood was harvested leagally. I can't think of a better use for it. If I were a tree that's what I would want to be when I grew up... |
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Location: NJ | ask this to henry at gibson |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | I have no issues whatsoever with the legal use of rare woods. If the manufacturer can legally obtain, use and sell it, nothing would stop me from buying it if I wanted it. I certainly jumped on the Brazilian Rosewood-backed EF75 when they were offered a few years ago. It may be the only BW guitar I ever own and I feel fortunate to have been at the right place at the right time listening to the right people to have been able to make it happen. |
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Location: Michigan | The shortage of exotic hardwoods is not a recent event. We use a lot of Honduras Mahogany. The quality and availability has been dropping for the last 10 years. We have had to fill in with Alder and laminates. We use a lot of European multi-laminate plywood. By "multi" I am talking about 19 laminates per inch. The quality of that has even dropped off. The Mahogany we get right now is basically crap. I would not use it to build a crate. It all started with a shortage of white pine and has moved on to other species. The fact is eventually we will run out of these resources as we are harvesting at a much greater rate than we are replenishing. I think the guitars of the future will be more and more like Ovations---Composite Acoustics--and plywood backed wood guitars. I think there is a great misnomer out there about laminates and composite materials. In most cases they are better than solid woods for just about every application. |
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Location: Michigan | I thought this "Endagerd Woods" thread might be about something else in the news :) |
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Location: GATLINBURG TENNESSEE :) | I never really thought about it before, but Ovation/Adamas guitars are probably the most environmentally-friendly guitars ever made, using a fraction of the wood of other guitars. I wonder if that would qualify the company to receive some stimulus money for funding green jobs??? You would also think that with all the environmentally-sensitive people there supposedly are in the entertainment industry, that they would be jumping all over each other to promote the sale/use of these instruments. |
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Location: Upper Left USA | I have no problem either.
My preference is to see where something is being recycled. This adds history as well as uniqueness.
Many of the old growth logs transported over the Great Lakes were hauled onto shore with operations that pushed several of the logs down into the bottom to form a base layer.
Planks, dunnage and such made from some of the exotic woods 200 years ago show up and are "gold mines" for a Luthier.
More recent treasures - look at some of the ebony fretboards on the early Ovation Solidbodies. I have seen several Ebon FBs with a gorgeous Caramel ribbon running through.
Didn't Paul Reed smith dismantle a dresser to make one of his early guitars? |
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Location: SoCal | Bob Taylor, about 10 years ago, built a guitar using wood pallets from behind his shop to show that it wasn't the great wood used, it was how it was used.
As much as I'm not a fan of Taylors, I thought this was very cool..... |
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Location: Michigan | Old logs that have been at the bottom of Lake Superior for a hundred years are now being pulled up and used. Some of the wood that has not been available for decades is being used to make instruments. Cool stuff, but again it won't last forever. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | To answer the question, I have no problem with it.
The issue is to stop or greatly control the future harvesting of the wood, or Ivory. |
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Location: Michigan | I guess the only problem I would have is that the countries where most of the wood is harvested is not always concerned with what they are doing to the forests. Lets just say they don't have the same "green" lobby we have here in the states. |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | It's a guitar. The wood is already harvested and you can't re-write history. If I don't buy the guitar then somebody else will. So what's the point. |
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Location: SoCal | Originally posted by Gallerinski:
It's a guitar. The wood is already harvested and you can't re-write history. If I don't buy the guitar then somebody else will. So what's the point. They're drugs. They're already made. If I don't buy them then somebody else will. So what's the point? |
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Location: south east Michigan | Originally posted by twistedlim:
I guess the only problem I would have is that the countries where most of the wood is harvested is not always concerned with what they are doing to the forests. Lets just say they don't have the same "green" lobby we have here in the states. Bingo!!
Ding Ding Ding!
We have a winner. |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | I have another hobby that consumes large amounts of dowels in various sizes. Maybe 7 or 8 years ago, I noticed a marked deterioration in the quality of the dowels available in bulk from the major home improvement stores, not only in the raw material, but in the size, consistency and uniformity of the finished turns. The material was primarily mahogany reportedly harvested from and processed in South America, and the dowels were rubbish. I eventually turned back to a former supplier in Maine that uses birch and maple. The difference in quality between the Maine supplier and the South American products was like night and day, plus I was able to obtain a number of custom sizes. Surprisingly, the bulk cost (we're talking several thousand dollars worth) was closer than you'd think. |
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Location: NJ | my understanding is most of the wood is "washed" through Germany and then sold with "clean" documentation. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | they are killing off the cork trees in Spain. This is because there is too much wine. They need to make the screw top the industry standard.
(while meant as a joke this really isn't) |
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Posts: 396
| Originally posted by moody, p.i.:
Originally posted by Gallerinski:
It's a guitar. The wood is already harvested and you can't re-write history. If I don't buy the guitar then somebody else will. So what's the point. They're drugs. They're already made. If I don't buy them then somebody else will. So what's the point? |
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Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Originally posted by Beal:
They need to make the screw top the industry standard.
I read an article about a year ago that said that using a screw top cap actually maintained the integrity of the wine better than cork and that it was only public perception that causes screw caps to be associated with the cheaper wines.
And if a guitar is offered in Honduran, Braz, or Madi I would have no problem buying it. |
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Location: South of most, North of few | I buy my wines in boxes. They fit in the fridge better. |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | I didn't realize until recently that those dead Englemann Spruce trees around my cabin were good for something other than firewood. Too late. I burned it. |
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Location: closely held secret | They also make for nice fires. |
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Location: Alagoas, Brazil | Brazilian Rosewood is almost extinct because the forests were cut down to open space for farming. Now we have laws that require farmers to plant again the forests in some parts of the farms, like along riverbanks, steep slopes and water springs. This will, eventually, bring back the rosewood trees, but these trees grow real slow, and will be good for harvesting only after 30-50 years.
My parents have a lot of Brazilian Rosewood furniture they bought back in the 70´s. That was the standard for building things, because it is immune to termites. |
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | PsychoBunny said: They also make for nice fires.
Taylors, you mean?
If you leave the strings on it makes nice sparkly colours and a sonorous boom when it lets go!
On the wine sidebar; plastic bags were the best thing that ever happened to wine. Keeps the oxygen from getting to it giving longer shelf life.
....AND it fits better in the frig. |
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Location: Hot Springs, S.D. | I buy MY "wine" in Patron bottles. With corks. |
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Those "endangered" woods