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Joined: November 2002 Posts: 1196
Location: Lafayette, Louisiana | I was wondering where large guitar manufactuers like Ovation get their wood from. How do they find large amounts of good quality spruce, mahogany, and ebony? Does Ovation depend on many sources to get their wood? Ovation uses such beautiful wood for its tops and necks, I just wonder where all that great looking wood comes from? |
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Joined: December 2001 Posts: 7222
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Trees :) No seriously... At NAMM there are a lot of "wood" suppliers. They comb the globe finding wood of quality and sell it to manufactures. I don't know the specifics on Ovation, but it's a good question to ask on the tour. On a side note, I think in the years to come, people are going to realize how forward thinking Ovation is/was in the fact of how little wood they use compared to more traditional guitars. I'm not particularly a tree hugger, but it really hit home when I had to find my studio monitors on eBay because Yamaha NS10's can no longer be made because the wood (trees) they used for the speaker cones no longer exist. |
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Joined: December 2003 Posts: 13987
Location: Upper Left USA | Set aside the name jokes and I'll share some info. Here is just one of many sites where you can obtain and learn about some of the cherished woods for instrument making:
Exotic Wood
Look under "Suppliers, exotic wood".
Dwindling resources are a concern to all. The AA and AAA spruce that is so cherished for the tops is not something that can be grown in 30 years like the majority of 2x4's we now get from "replenishable" forests. Same with the 30 rings per inch Cedar needed for instruments like violins.
A very small tree-hugging soapbox - we are living in an era that has so many resources. We can obtain resources from the 19th, 20th and current centuries. What are we doing to give our descendants the same chance?
M(Woodman, Woodrow, The Woodster)Woody |
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Joined: July 2003 Posts: 1922
Location: Canton (Detroit), MI | It isn't hard to see that before too gosh-awful long (approx. 20 years) quality wood guitars are going to get more and more expensive until they can only be afforded by those with some money. Get 'em now.
It looks to me like Adamas and Rainsong are the wave of the future. It might possibly be that regular Ovations will have the carbon fiber top as well as the Adamas. We'll have grades of carbon fiber construction quality instead of solid wood.
Mike, as far as the answer to your question....not much! U.S. society's creed is "there's more where that came from"..... :(
Makes the case for buying and taking care of old guitars, doesn't it?
Roger
1976 Applause AA14-4 6-String
1978 Ovation 1617-4 Legend 6-string
1981 Ovation 1118-1 Glen Campbell 12-string
2001 Adamas 1598-MERB Melissa Etheridge 12-String
2003 Ovation 1777-NAT Legend 6-string |
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Joined: December 2003 Posts: 13987
Location: Upper Left USA | "But honey! I have to (buy it now/own more than 6) before the Rain forests are depleted! Probably won't work but what the heck.
BTW Roger, I always thought it was your Applause that was old and not you. |
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Joined: January 2004 Posts: 648
Location: Florida | I cant help but thing the bowl is gonna be the killer part - considering the price of crude these days. |
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