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The Future of Wood http://w-ww.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10102&t=6646	Page 1 of 2

Author:	Philip Perdue [ Fri May 12, 2006 8:03 am ]
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I have actually posted this on another thread but then got to thinking about it and decided that it might need a thread of it’s on for better viewing. There have been several postings lately regarding destruction of the rainforests and wood use for the future. The below information is one way that trees is being used in a positive manner for the future. See below. I thought that I would pass on a link to Tropical American Tree Farms based in Costa Rica. I ran across them while researching investment opportunities. Let me also say that I have no connection with nor current investment in this company. So far the research that I have done makes me believe that this is currently a company in good standing and a viable reputation. They currently grow the following varieties of trees: Premium Mixture Supra Mixture Bocote Brazilian Cherry Cocobolo Goncalo Alves Ipe or Lapacho Madero Negro Mahogany Nargusta Peroba Rosa Primavera Purpleheart Roble Santa Maria Teak Trebol Wild Tambran Who know what they might grow if requested. Tropical American Tree Farms Philip

Author:	burbank [ Fri May 12, 2006 8:57 am ]
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Philip, Thanks for this post. Costa Rica just blows me away sometimes with what little I've seen of it. I talked with a forest tour guide (a government position that requires a degree in the sciences) down there years ago and was very impressed with the sense of stewardship he and many others felt towards their natural resources, which they viewed as essential to the economic survival of a country with few other options.

Author:	Colin S [ Fri May 12, 2006 8:12 pm ]
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In the long term, very long term, wood probably doesn't have a future. I've played a couple of the Loughborough University all plastic-polymer guitars, not a piece of wood in the entire acoustic guitar. What did they sound like? Well like high end custom built guitars. They played and sounded great. Close your eyes and you'd think you had a Lowden or Aram in your hands. I've seen the future and it's plastic! ColinColin S38850.278275463

Author:	Martin Turner [ Fri May 12, 2006 9:40 pm ]
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[QUOTE=Colin S] In the long term, very long term, wood probably doesn't have a future. I've played a couple of the Loughborough University all plastic-polymer guitars, not a piece of wood in the entire acoustic guitar. What did they sound like? Well like high end custom built guitars. They played and sounded great. Close your eyes and you'd think you had a Lowden in your hands. I've seen the future and it's plastic! Colin [/QUOTE] I cant help but see analogies with the Cork versus Stelvin Seal issue with wine closures.

Author:	Colin S [ Fri May 12, 2006 9:44 pm ]
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[QUOTE=kiwigeo] [QUOTE=Colin S] In the long term, very long term, wood probably doesn't have a future. I've played a couple of the Loughborough University all plastic-polymer guitars, not a piece of wood in the entire acoustic guitar. What did they sound like? Well like high end custom built guitars. They played and sounded great. Close your eyes and you'd think you had a Lowden in your hands. I've seen the future and it's plastic! Colin [/QUOTE] I cant help but see analogies with the Cork versus Stelvin Seal issue with wine closures. [/QUOTE] Even in Europe in the fine wine vineries of Bordeaux they are talking about plastic or screw cap closures to replace the cork, as being more stable and preserving the wine better. Good cork, like good wood, is becoming rarer and more expensive. I've just spent ?300 having the corks replaced with new cork and wax seals on my collection of vintage port, cork only lasts 50 years or so and can then start to break down. The future is screw top, the guitar future is polymer plastics. Colin

Author:	Don Williams [ Fri May 12, 2006 10:26 pm ]
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Well then. we're really in trouble...considering the cost of oil these days. I'm not sure it's going to be that much better an option. "Thanks Dad! I can't believe you were able to afford one of these Real Plastic guitars! I thought I'd end up with one of those old-fashioned WOOD guitars. This is WAY BETTER!" Nope. Not gonna happen. You won't see THIS guy investing in plastic-guitar futures....

Author:	Don Williams [ Fri May 12, 2006 10:27 pm ]
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Plastic guitar? Isn't that sort-of like an Ovation? Yeah, you're right. Everyone wants an Ovation......

Author:	TomS [ Fri May 12, 2006 10:49 pm ]
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In the future, some plastics may be made from wood. The University of Maine has just received a large grant to do forest bioproducts research. A quote from the U Maine website: "UMaine's method of biorefining entails extracting chemicals from wood chips or shavings before the wood is further processed into pulp or oriented strad board (OSB), preserving the quality of the wood for further processing. The chemicals extracted could be sold as new feedstocks or used on-site to manufacture materials such as fuel ethanol, plastics and specialty chemicals such as coatings -- virtually everything currently made with oil."

Author:	Colin S [ Sat May 13, 2006 12:03 am ]
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[QUOTE=Don Williams] Plastic guitar? Isn't that sort-of like an Ovation? Yeah, you're right. Everyone wants an Ovation...... [/QUOTE] Believe me Don, these are no Ovations, the advanced polymers are tailored to the exact use in each part of the guitar, the tops respond like the best Euro spruce. OK as long as there is wood out there we'll all still want wooden guitars, but these plastic ones SOUND just as good. Colin

Author:	Bobc [ Sat May 13, 2006 12:48 am ]
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Colin [/QUOTE] Even in Europe in the fine wine vineries of Bordeaux they are talking about plastic or screw cap closures to replace the cork, as being more stable and preserving the wine better. Good cork, like good wood, is becoming rarer and more expensive. I've just spent ?300 having the corks replaced with new cork and wax seals on my collection of vintage port, cork only lasts 50 years or so and can then start to break down. The future is screw top, the guitar future is polymer plastics. Colin [/QUOTE] Well I won't have to worry about that. My wine never lasts more than a few years.

Author:	Mattia Valente [ Sat May 13, 2006 12:56 am ]
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I don't think wood'll go anywhere, really, because of the traditions, etc. Heck, even the beauty of the material. Do synthetics break in the same way? Age the same way? Guitars are not only tools for making music, they're also artifacts.

Author:	Larry Davis [ Sat May 13, 2006 2:01 am ]
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[QUOTE=Colin S] [QUOTE=kiwigeo] [QUOTE=Colin S] In the long term, very long term, wood probably doesn't have a future. I've played a couple of the Loughborough University all plastic-polymer guitars, not a piece of wood in the entire acoustic guitar. What did they sound like? Well like high end custom built guitars. They played and sounded great. Close your eyes and you'd think you had a Lowden in your hands. I've seen the future and it's plastic! Colin [/QUOTE] I cant help but see analogies with the Cork versus Stelvin Seal issue with wine closures. [/QUOTE] Even in Europe in the fine wine vineries of Bordeaux they are talking about plastic or screw cap closures to replace the cork, as being more stable and preserving the wine better. Good cork, like good wood, is becoming rarer and more expensive. I've just spent ?300 having the corks replaced with new cork and wax seals on my collection of vintage port, cork only lasts 50 years or so and can then start to break down. The future is screw top, the guitar future is polymer plastics. Colin [/QUOTE] Wow!!!! Didn't realize how far ahead of the times I was buying screw top wine 20 years agao

Author:	Colin S [ Sat May 13, 2006 2:21 am ]
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Of course wood is here to stay for the foreseeable future, but I can see a future for these new materials especially in recording where their predictability and stability make them a good proposition. Well they'll probably replace rosewood and sitka, but never mahogany and Euro! Colin

Author:	Mario [ Sat May 13, 2006 2:22 am ]
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I don't think screw tops make wine last longer; whenever I open a bottle, it doesn't last more than a couple hours, max..... RE: the future... When I was a wee lad(and some of y'all were already grown ups), there was a show on TV called 'Space, 1999'. Yup, in 1999, we were going to have large space platforms, dress in funky 'futuristic' polymer clothing, etc... But '99 came and went. I was still driving an '82 Buick, bruning refined fossil bones via a leaky carburetor. I was wearing jeans and a cotton T-shirt. We heated our home with wood. Yup, 1999 came and went, and it looked at a whole lot like the past.... Can a "plastic" guitar sound okay? Sure! Ovations, for all the yuk-yuk we toss 'em, sound fine. While I think rainsongs suck big time, the CA guitars, also made entirely of Carbon Fiber, sound really, really good. But they're bland. I like wood. I am human. I have emotions, and wood, being a natural product, does it for me. Since most people are human, I would suspect that most of us will still want a wood guitar over one of the plastic ones. 30 years ago, everyone was slapping vinyl flooring over their 'old" hardwood floors. 20 years ago, everybody and his brother was replacing the wood siding on their homes with vinyl siding. Today, we can make a good living ripping up vinyl flooring and restoring that old hardwood floor that lay underneath it. And a lot of folks are ripping off that ugly, bland, smelly vinyl siding and putting up good old pine or cedar siding once again. I have seen the future, and dang, if it don't look a lot like yesterday.

Author:	Shawn [ Sat May 13, 2006 2:49 am ]
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Colin...your a Port connoisseur!...now I have one more fact to put into my mental mosaic.. Is there a particular type, maker or age that you have focused on? The Tropical American Tree Farms guys in Costa Rica are legitimate. Not all tree farm investments in Costa Rica and other parts of Central and South America are or have been. I have been involved with the owning and running of a sawmill in Guyana for many years and many years ago used to be a direct importer of exotic hardwoods. I was shot at several times (that was during the contra wars in Nicaragua and Costa Rica) while timber cruising. In Costa Rica there were alot of American investors that lost money in Teak plantations. Tropical American Tree Farms is a very interesting idea as an investment idea that can also be used as part of a 401K retirement investment. They sell you the trees in the plantation, not the land. What you really own is the rights to the output of those trees as they mature and are sold. Various species are planted in the same plot so that some mature at different rates so that there is incremental revenue as the plot is thinned and maintained. They own the land and with their share of the profits on the wood have been purchasing more land to expand the plantation. In many cases the same locals that had burned off forest to subsistance farm the land are then employed to maintain the plantation, providing income and an alternative to deforesting. Here is my stand on this...any effort to slow the pace of deforestation if good but may be too little too late. Plantations of species that are marketable but otherwise being depleted in the wild are also a good thing but also may not be enough. For me I did something interesting (at least to me). Part of my estate that I will leave my children is not able to be converted into cash. I own land that I have planted and maintain as a tree farm, planted with Walnut and Ash. Walnut is more vauable if the trunk is as long as possible without knots from branches. Walnut trees naturally grow in a spread globe shape so in order to maximum the trunk length I planted with Ash. Ash grows faster so the walnut trees are forced to go tall in order to reach the light. As the Ash matures it can be selectively harvested opening up light in the canopy so the walnut tree can now flourish and put on diameter. Ash is a really nice but underused hardwood as it has less interesting grain than Oak but is still a very good secondary wood or as a primary wood is often stained to look more like oak. The Ash can be harvested in 20-30 years while the Walnut should really be given 30+ as it retains and increases its value with size and age. What I end up with is a product that is much more valuable than if I had planted two separate plots of all Ash and all Walnut. My purpose in doing this as part of my estate is that I have put something into my estate is not cash to be divided between my heirs but rather a statement that I did something that was not directly for them but for their children and their childrens children. Wood is the most renewable resource on the planet but only when we make a conscious effort to replentish it.

Author:	Roy O [ Sat May 13, 2006 3:04 am ]
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[QUOTE=Bobc] Colin [/QUOTE] Even in Europe in the fine wine vineries of Bordeaux they are talking about plastic or screw cap closures to replace the cork, as being more stable and preserving the wine better. Good cork, like good wood, is becoming rarer and more expensive. I've just spent ?300 having the corks replaced with new cork and wax seals on my collection of vintage port, cork only lasts 50 years or so and can then start to break down. The future is screw top, the guitar future is polymer plastics. Colin [/QUOTE] Well I won't have to worry about that. My wine never lasts more than a few years. [/QUOTE] I was thinking the same thing. Vintage for me is pre 2003.

Author:	Colin S [ Sat May 13, 2006 4:16 am ]
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[QUOTE=Shawn] Colin...your a Port connoisseur!...now I have one more fact to put into my mental mosaic.. Is there a particular type, maker or age that you have focused on? [/QUOTE] Shawn, My favourite tends to be Fonseca, I have vintages of Fonseca back to 1934, but I also have Croft, Warre,Smith Woodhouse and Taylor from 1950 onwards. The Fonseca '63 and Croft'50 are particular favourites. I also like old Bordeaux and have a good cellar of 60s, 70s and early 80s 1st and 2nd growths including a couple of cases of the '79 Laffite. My absolute favourite though is the '79 Gruand Larose. I bought them all en primeur when undrinkably young and have kept them all at least 20 years. They would be unaffordable now but are eminently drinkable now. Think I'll go open a bottle! ColinColin S38850.5534375

Author:	Billy T [ Sat May 13, 2006 10:46 am ]
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[QUOTE]I was thinking the same thing. Vintage for me is pre 2003. [/QUOTE] Mine's pre 2:30! Colin: Is that the Cool Acoustics guitar made by Armstrong? I've downloaded Giltrap playing that thing and I have to say, for plastic, it doesn't sound half bad! Also Giltrap does an outstanding job himself! American's don't get to hear too much of British guitarists over here. We only get Americans like Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, John McLaughlin...! It's hard to get a real feel from a mp3, but it's close enough for rock'n roll.Cool Acoustics Plastics, are not really threatened by oil shortages. convertion from coal is a well proven technology, it's all a question of economics. As with gold, price goes up, mines open, prices go down, mines close! When the price get's high enough we'll convert. I just wish, like many people, that we could bring to pass a little foresight. The Germans ran most of WWII on synthetics, believe me, I've talked to some Hungarians that lived right by Polesti. One of the guy's dad got it there. The Brits and Americans blew the H. E. double hockey sticks out of that place. We can surely go synthetic now. Plastic guitars are safe!

Author:	Martin Turner [ Sat May 13, 2006 12:24 pm ]
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[QUOTE=Mario] I don't think screw tops make wine last longer; whenever I open a bottle, it doesn't last more than a couple hours, max..... .[/QUOTE] Mario, The main aim of using Stelvin Seals is to reduce incidence of corked wines. The condition is caused by the presence of a compound called Trichloro Anisol (TCA) in the cork. TCA has a very pungent wet hessian like taste and odour even in concentrations of a few parts per billion. A corked wine is something you dont forget in a hurry. Corked wines cost the wine industry a huge amount of money. Here in Australia a wine producer recently had to withdraw an entire vintage due to high incidences of corked wine. What youre experiencing when you notice a wine going downhill after sitting in an open bottle for a while is primarily oxidation. Cheers Martin

Author:	PaulB [ Sat May 13, 2006 12:54 pm ]
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[QUOTE=kiwigeo] [QUOTE=Mario] I don't think screw tops make wine last longer; whenever I open a bottle, it doesn't last more than a couple hours, max..... .[/QUOTE] Mario, The main aim of using Stelvin Seals is to reduce incidence of corked wines. The condition is caused by the presence of a compound called Trichloro Anisol (TCA) in the cork. TCA has a very pungent wet hessian like taste and odour even in concentrations of a few parts per billion. A corked wine is something you dont forget in a hurry. Corked wines cost the wine industry a huge amount of money. Here in Australia a wine producer recently had to withdraw an entire vintage due to high incidences of corked wine. What youre experiencing when you notice a wine going downhill after sitting in an open bottle for a while is primarily oxidation. Cheers Martin[/QUOTE] You can tell he lives but a stones throw away from the Barossa and Clare valleys, huh? I guess arguably just about the best wine regions in the country if not the planet.

Author:	Todd Rose [ Sat May 13, 2006 12:54 pm ]
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Shawn, thanks for sharing your stories. I like the ash/walnut farm idea, and appreciate your purpose in doing it. I happen to have a particular fondness for both those trees and the woods they produce. Around here (NY state and beyond) most all the ash trees are infested with a borer causing "ash die-back". They die slowly, and can sometimes get fairly big before they go, but they die nonetheless. My land is abundant with ash trees - countless saplings, many up to 10" in diameter that are doing okay, a few bigger ones hanging in there, and many dead and dying ones. Enough great firewood to last my family a very long time (and we do heat our house with it)! Not much worth harvesting as wood for other purposes, though. But I did harvest enough bigger ones that were half dead to make roughly 1000 sq ft of beautiful flooring for my house. I'm using the leftovers from the flooring to panel the walls of two basement rooms, too. I've only found one walnut tree on our property. Wish I had more. This one is out in the open, so it has lots of branches, and produces a lot of nuts. End of ramble.

Author:	Martin Turner [ Sat May 13, 2006 4:35 pm ]
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[QUOTE=PaulB] You can tell he lives but a stones throw away from the Barossa and Clare valleys, huh? I guess arguably just about the best wine regions in the country if not the planet.[/QUOTE] Paul, you've got the Hunter and its amazing Semillions not far from you.

Author:	Shane Neifer [ Sat May 13, 2006 5:27 pm ]
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Timely!!!! I was just thinking the other day as I was driving down the road somewhere (can't remember where, that would be doing two things at once!). One of the rarest woods we have to making guitars is our spruces. It hit me so hard I was almost depressed for a bit!!! The wood I harvest averages in the 5-600 year old range. Never again will we see these trees and they are going very fast! And sadly much for plane old lumber which is only a small step above above the pulp they were being shreaded into 50 years ago. We can see aven BRW tree grown to fine guitar sizes in 100 years or less. But in the spruce I harvest I remove almost 60 years of growth just to remove the sap wood. Once these trees are gone......they're gone! There, I'm depressed again....I need to find my happy place . Shane

Author:	Billy T [ Sat May 13, 2006 8:38 pm ]
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Speaking of this, a friend of mine has a large black walnut in his front yard and it lost a big branch after the last wind storms last year. As he was out cutting and trimming, 3 different guy's drove by and offered him money for the tree, because they thought he was cutting it down. I was eyeball'in leftovers myself but it was pretty bad branch wood.

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