Official Luthiers Forum!

I've read all the old posts about these guys. I'm in purchasing as a career, so it was particularly "entertaining" for me. But I'm wondering, did they go out of business? Their website no longer comes up.

I got an e-mail from him the other day - he says he still has plenty of good
wood.

This is just my opinion..... but....

I see no need to rehash all of this. It was an unfortunate thread and let's just "not go there" again.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

I just wanted to know if he was still around as I wanted to check out his wares. After all the talk, I wanted to see what his deals were. And now that I can't find it, I wonder if his customer service did drive him out of business.

Now I'm not trying to push the envelope here by bringing this up, as every forum has it's own code of ethics, but curiosity got the better of me.

Edit:
I should note that those threads were very useful as I just bought some Alaskan Yellow Cedar. More information is always better when making a decision, although in this case it wouldn't have mattered since their website is down.bbeardb38708.7388888889

[QUOTE=bbeardb] I just wanted to know if he was still around as I wanted to check out his wares. After all the talk, I wanted to see what his deals were. And now that I can't find it, I wonder if his customer service did drive him out of business.

Now I'm not trying to push the envelope here by bringing this up, as every forum has it's own code of ethics, but curiosity got the better of me.

Edit:
I should note that those threads were very useful as I just bought some Alaskan Yellow Cedar. More information is always better when making a decision, although in this case it wouldn't have mattered since their website is down.[/QUOTE]


I know, but I didn't want to kick the hornet's nest again.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

[QUOTE=highdrawlicks] bbeardb,

Where did you get the yellow cedar? And was it topwood, back & side sets, or dimensional? And if it was topwood, have you ever used it on a build? I picked up a couple of gorgeous sets a year back or so, but have hesitated to use it, since I have no experience with it.[/QUOTE]

Hey Michael,

I just ended up getting a board from Gilmer Wood. It's not a tonewood company, but they had an unusual piece of exotic wood I wanted to use as an experiment. I don't need really good wood as I'm new and my guitars probably won't sound great no matter what wood I use, so I'll save it for the professionals. No sense in wasting good wood and fooling myself that I'll be selling guitars after build #2. I'm sure I could get somebody to buy it, but I sure wouldn't feel good about it. If somebody is going to drop the dough for a handmade, they better make sure it's a good handmade with experience behind it.


I'm just going to re-saw the yellow cedar and use it at a later date. Most likely for backs and sides for a flamenco, but I think I might do a guitar out of nothing but yellow cedar. Back, sides, and top. Like I said, I'm new and afford to make guitars that might not sound good. Technique and experience building is the more imporant thing right now. I'll worry about wood selection when I have the technique down better. Besides , it's just an expensive hobby, so I might as well experiment and have fun!

[QUOTE=bbeardb]I just ended up getting a board from Gilmer Wood. It's not a tonewood company, but they had an unusual piece of exotic wood I wanted to use as an experiment. [/QUOTE]

In my opinion Gilmer is a tone wood company... just not exclusively a tonewood company. I have bought some really fantastic wood from them before. I wouldn't hesitate for one second to buy from them.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

[QUOTE=Brock Poling]
In my opinion Gilmer is a tone wood company... just not exclusively a tonewood company. I have bought some really fantastic wood from them before. I wouldn't hesitate for one second to buy from them.[/QUOTE]

Cool, that's good to know. I did talk to Marc there and he seemed very knowledgable and was very nice and helpful. In fact, everybody I dealt with was very friendly. Case in point, I emailed about this piece of wood I wanted, and Marc called me to tell me he didn't think it would work well or sound good at all! I'm still going to try it, but that kind of honesty is awesome.

Back to Gilmer's wood, I was just under the impression that they do exotics and tonewood as a side. I guess that doesn't mean their tone wood can't be great tonewood!

I think they serve a range of markets. turners, instrument makers, cabinet makers looking for HUGE slabs to build confrence tables out of.... a wide range of things.

The only thing with Gilmer is (generally speaking) it is easiest to work with them when you have your own milling and resaw capacity. But everything I have bought from them has been exceptional.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

[QUOTE=Brock Poling]
I think they serve a range of markets. turners, instrument makers, cabinet makers looking for HUGE slabs to build confrence tables out of.... a wide range of things.[/QUOTE]

Brock's right. I've stopped by there a couple of times when I've been in Portland. They have a whole room that's just instrument wood but that's just part of their business. It is a decent portion of there business and Marc's been doing it for long enough that he really knows his instrument wood.

I just received a sample bolt from Alaska Tonewood;
it was in transit exactly 2 weeks. It arrived in good shape & very well
packaged. The bolt is a 26"-long wedge with sealed ends, sheathed in
cardboard & wrapped in brown paper; the end dimensions are:
9" across the outer/wider arc;
3.5" across the narrow/inner arc;
nearly 11" along the sides.

appears to be 5 lines in 3/8", from a sample I took from the outside arc.

John certainly was in business on 12/15 when he mailed my sample, and I
have no complaints whatever about his service or anything else. He
*does* seem to be having some e-mail problems, and these could be
related to the state of his website, but e-mail (and domain) problems can
hit anyone without warning, and can take time to resolve, so there's no
faulting him for that. We've been able to communicate anyway.

Brock, I hope this post is not out of line - seems appropriate to me, but
I'm NOT interested in stirring things up, so let me know, 'kay?

sorry!chmood38717.5905787037