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In a recent post about guitar making woods and the ones that are becoming endagered I mentioned Sitka as I thought I'd read something about it somewhere. I came across this link today.

All the more reason to make best use of what we have and treasure the work and endeavors of people like Shane.

_________________
Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Shocking...there is so much spruce it's hard to imagine it getting wasted so quickly. I guess we will be looking at some more colourful or four pieces tops in the future.

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David White, Toronto

"All my favourite singers can't sing."

Read this over at the Mandolin Cafe forum, some good insights there.

 

http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=1 2;t=44511;

 

Dan

Great thread Dave,

I have for a while now, been known to state that I think Spruce is probably more at risk than some of the "endangered" hardwoods. I qualify this though. The reality is that instrument grade spruce as we know it today is not a renewable resource. Once a 4-600 year old tree is removed, other spruce trees will replace it so the fibre will be available, but it will not be allowed to grow for another 4-600 years before it is harvested again. More likely it will grow for 60 to 80 years and be harvested as second growth. We will likely still be able to get good quality 4 piece tops for as long as we will build but the days of quality two piece sets can become very rare in the next decade or three. We can grow most harwood species in instrument quality in 100 years or less, but not so with these slow growing giants. I am very encouraged to see that there are people working to secure some access for this industry. I will be in contact with some of these groups. (and you also Todd!)

Thanks again Dave!

Shane

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Canada

   To throw even more gas on the fire,
I believe the above reasons coupled with the pine beetle devestation thats raging in the interior of BC right now,
really is even more cause for concern - especially when the federal budget in Canada made an allowance of $0 to deal with the problem....
gee they must not like thier double transfer payments from us in Ottawa, hey Shane?
Cheers
Charliewod

Bark Beetles have been killing off the Red Spruce in northern Maine as well. What few remain.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

[QUOTE=charliewood]    To throw even more gas on the fire,
I believe the above reasons coupled with the pine beetle devestation thats raging in the interior of BC right now,
really is even more cause for concern - especially when the federal budget in Canada made an allowance of $0 to deal with the problem....
gee they must not like thier double transfer payments from us in Ottawa, hey Shane?
Cheers
Charliewod[/QUOTE]

I am working on this! I have already had audience with the MLA(Provincial Rep) and will meet again with him and our MP(Federal Rep) probably near the end of next month.

Dave, thanks again for this....calls have been made!

Shane

_________________
Canada

I remember when "The Beetles" invaded America...I saw them at the 1963 Worlds Fair...

oh, never mind, a different kind of beetle (Peter Best not included either)

I'm not much for beetles... in my lumber, but here is Taylor's video on gleaning spruce for instruments.
get Wood.

chris

_________________
Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

How much forest would you have to reserve to maintain a continuous supply of music wood?

Some "back of the envelope" calculations:

150 trees (music quality) between 300-400 years old a year.

You'd need to start with a 50 year supply. So figure 7,500 music quality trees.

During the first 50 years of harvesting, another 7,500 trees will have to mature into the music quality range. So you will need a good number of 250-300 year old trees to begin with as well.

I know nothing about Sitka forests. How big of and old growth stand of trees do you need to reserve to secure a continuous supply.

I suppose it would be unwise to put the reserved music wood trees in a single contiguous forest. Forest fires, infestations and who know what else could happen.

You can't harvest the younger trees in this forest because they need to grow up to be music wood. Even the funky trees need to stay around because you don't want the good trees to get too much light and start to grow too fast.

What is the revenue one would expect from a forest this size assuming current use (construction lumber, pulp, etc)? Could we, the instrument wood community, afford to pay enough to make it worth while to reserve this forest?

The article mentioned 6,000 acres. Could the music wood consortium afford to buy the forest today? Would you want to be beholden to Fender, Gibson, Martin and Taylor to get your wood?

Mike it's really not the simple.

We are talking about several hundred million $ of wood here, maybe over a billion $ just in the BC forests alone.

And don't forget all the tree huggers who don't want any of these forests to be touched at all.

There is not enough money in the guitar building world to reserve any portion of a forest.

The other factor is the waste created from getting instrument grade wood. I don't know the number but I seem to recall from the Voth's at CV tonewood (cedar suppliers to Asia, 60,0000+ tops a year) that the waste from cutting cedar is like 30% and that's after you've split the billets.

There is more wood leaving our shores than we can imagine. Most Asian countries are buying it as fast as they can and they will pay a considerably higher fee for it than anyone in north America is willing to pay. Than they sell the stuff they don't want back to us. Nice eh?

There will come a time when it may be more cost effective to build a house out of steel or brick (or BC bud) rather than Canadian softwood.

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"Would you want to be beholden to....Gibson....to get your wood? "

How ironic would that be???    

"How much forest would you have to reserve to maintain a continuous
supply of music wood? "

Forget trying to grow Sitka, Engelmann, Redwood, or Red Cedar trees that
would work for our purposes. It just ain't gonna happen.
Oh, it might after a couple thousand years when the forest evolves
into the perfect enviornment for growing trees with old-growth
characterics.

"The reality is that instrument grade spruce as we know it today is not a
renewable resource."

I've milled Red Spruce (for guitars, no less) that came from second-
growth mixed conifer/
hardwood stands that were completely burned out a couple
hundred years ago. You could see the old burned out stumps that
must've been a couple hundred years old....

So-ooo, I think it is possible to grow pure stands of
Picea rubens that
would be suitable for guitars in a couple hundred years....
You might even try getting good genetic stock from your favorite guitar
tree to increase your odds....

But forget trying to do this with Sitka or Engelmann. Makes you
really appreciate the beauty and complxity of an growth stand.
And it also makes one very sad to stand
in the midst of a fresh clearcut....

[QUOTE=spruce]
"How much forest would you have to reserve to maintain a continuous
supply of music wood? "

Forget trying to grow Sitka, Engelmann, Redwood, or Red Cedar trees that
would work for our purposes. It just ain't gonna happen.
Oh, it might after a couple thousand years when the forest evolves
into the perfect enviornment for growing trees with old-growth
characterics.

[/QUOTE]

I wasn't suggesting that we "plant" a forest for guitar woods but to take and existing old-growth forest and reserve it for sustained harvest of 300-400 year old trees. The only way that would happen is if we make it financially worth while to the owner of the forest or become the owners ourselves. The question then becomes how much forest do we need to reserve? If the answer is that it would be too expensive, than we have to face the fact that the current owners of the forest can't afford to do it either. That seems to be what Rod was saying above.

Another approach would be to have the music wood consortium tag all the instrument grade logs in a stand that is about to be clear cut and buy them. They would then be milled and stickered and placed into wear houses.
Once the trees are all gone we would still have this huge stash wood.

One of the problems is that a tree that could make 1000's of guitar tops can also make 2x4s. Of course the opposite is not true. The bulk of the trees are being cut to supply construction lumber and pulp. The instrument grade trees a just part of the mix.

[QUOTE=spruce] "Would you want to be beholden to....Gibson....to get your wood? "

How ironic would that be???    

"How much forest would you have to reserve to maintain a continuous
supply of music wood? "

Forget trying to grow Sitka, Engelmann, Redwood, or Red Cedar trees that
would work for our purposes. It just ain't gonna happen.
Oh, it might after a couple thousand years when the forest evolves
into the perfect enviornment for growing trees with old-growth
characterics.

"The reality is that instrument grade spruce as we know it today is not a
renewable resource."

I've milled Red Spruce (for guitars, no less) that came from second-
growth mixed conifer/
hardwood stands that were completely burned out a couple
hundred years ago. You could see the old burned out stumps that
must've been a couple hundred years old....

So-ooo, I think it is possible to grow pure stands of
Picea rubens that
would be suitable for guitars in a couple hundred years....
You might even try getting good genetic stock from your favorite guitar
tree to increase your odds....

But forget trying to do this with Sitka or Engelmann. Makes you
really appreciate the beauty and complxity of an growth stand.
And it also makes one very sad to stand
in the midst of a fresh clearcut.... [/QUOTE]