Official Luthiers Forum!

I inquire of those who have substantial time in both production of their 'one at a times' and work in a 'factory'--also others here that have experience, theories, comments.
The Forum, has, and more in recent months, had posted comments, reports of the unbelievable increase in production of Foreign Guit. and the concomitantly-rocketing of the harvesting of commonly use guitar woods.
Some lumber sources have great pressure, (not to mention the CITES woods on the books), to increase production.
Obviously. supply of the prime logs of these species, is in decline. As this happens quality of primo stuff will suffer as will, inevitably, the definition of what constitutes 'primo' will slide--as will quality of 'quarter-sawn', stiffness, color, figuring.
I don't wish to be considered alarmist, but when is it time to be concerned about quality, availability of, and inevitably increased prices of luthier quality woods.
Hond. Mahog is great example re: above. Stories of greatly reduced lumber suitable for necks, B/S.
Additionally, and more profound is the use of these woods to produce other manufactured goods. We must keep in mind that a SE Asian, African, So. American loggers have no care and very little (there are exceptions, of course-those loggers who search for 'our' great woods knowledge of the woods they are hacking by the mile have 'luthier value';

In fact, many of the woods discussed here are just another wood, harvested by the thousands of tons to make 2x4s, tables, widgets, major construction. This exacerbates the problem-much of this wood is 'wood fodder' used to build all things--includ. housing widgets..as infinitum.
Finally, sorry for rambling (try to keep in mind I am a 'real Bi-polar" individual, not the kind that it seems 'fashionable to claim the disease. If these 'cool disease of the day' sickos really have the full blown disease, joking about it would disappear(Bi-polar easily out-strips all other forms of mental illness in the rate of suicide)(bi-polar usually has an overlay of early and severe parental physical and emotional abuse, which for treatment and diagnosis is a nightmare.-except by some bi-polars that do comedy for a living-and are sometimes weird but inevitably very intelligent, knowledgeable and VERY Funny- sorry, these detours...
Finally, what wood(s) do you see (from OUR perspective), in the foreseeable future in trouble because of availability, quality, and price.
Is there something to be done by us and all others assoc. with luthery to respond to problem?

I have always thought the following will happen; although, to be fair, I am
not very knowledgeable when it comes to this subject. However, I think
my opinion makes a good amount of sense.

I see the following happening. There will come a time when the "big
guys" no longer have enough instrument grade wood to keep building
their guitars. At this point, I believe that carbon fiber, etc... will become
the future with these companies continuing to offer wood guitars at a
substantially increased price. When that happens, I believe that the wood
available for the rest of us might actually increase. Just think about how
much wood medium grade furniture and all the instrument factories use.
When the supplies become scarce enough as to susbstantially raise prices
for the consumers - then they will move on to a different raw material -
likely laminates or other man-made materials. If that happens, I only see
the wood situation improving for us. It wouldn't take that many trees to
supply the whole hobby and professional luthier community for quite a
while.

We will also likely see a lot of alternative tonewoods like Oak become
mainstream at a certain point.

I could be way of base - but I think aspects of the above make a lot of
sense.

Well I should keep my mouth shut here but I wont.

I have been confronted by a few overly zealous tree huggers in my town. for waisting natural resources.

I wont go into my political views on this subject other than to say that many of the the countries that condemn the US for wasteful use of wood are the same countries that slash and burn millions of acres of old growth forests each year

If one Provence of Brazil would but a stop to the slash and burn policies of their countrymen for the minimal agricultural they gain from the newly cleared land. There would be enough Old Growth Brazilian Rosewood to support the furnishing and lutherie trades, World wide for many centuries. However it is not in the momentary economical benefit of those that are clearing the land to do so because they have built their agriculture on crops that deplete the land quickly therefore they are in constant need for newly cleared land.

I am no economics expert but it would seem to me if they were able market world wide a small portion of the timber they are currently just burning up, The economic influx would be enough to dramatically reduce the need to clear more and more land. i know managed forestry of slow growing timber like Brazilian Rosewood is too long of a process to serve a single generation. but at least market the timber that you need to remove rather than burn it.

Great discussion.
Perhaps, most worrysome to me are the top-soundboard woods. Alternative woods are accordingly restricted. What if any problems here?

There are some forest management systems in place in Europe, at least, and there's still plenty of Euro Spruce around. What the situation in the US is like, I don't know. There are plantations growing EIR and Mahogany in various countries, and though prices may rise to the point where it becomes semi-prohibitive to build guitars, well, that in and of itself will cap the massive production in the far east, as will, I'll wager, wage increases if/when said countries develop further and standards of living/pay increase.

What I do know is that I buy when I can afford it, and when I can find the place to store it, because prices aren't going down any time soon.

I have been trying to build a stockpile of domestic woods that are suitable for guitar building. This is an expensive venture and here are some reasons why:

First, the size woods we want (9" wide) or close to that width, is not the standard sizes sawyers are accustomed to sawing. Also, we demand quarter sawn or at least reasonably verticle grained woods. This increases their labor costs because of how it has to be sawn. One of the main reasons this is expensive is because people like me can only afford to buy a couple of hundred dollars worth of the wood from them, leaving the rest to sell to someone else. This increases their marketing expensses.

I have sawyers willing to saw choice domestic woods, but they want to at least sella whole log's worth of wood that is quarter sawn. The only way we will see domestic woods that are suitable for lutherie get more plentiful is if we all band together to purchase in volume. Otherwise, it just isnt worth it to them to saw the stuff.

By the way, I did manaqge to buy a pallet load of cherry and curly walnut, which is on it's way to me. I also have some other woods that I have purchased in smaller quantities.

I'm sure that it is a similar story for south american sawyers. As soon as there is someone who is capable of purchasing pallet load quantities, they will saw the lumber we want at sizes we can use and the way we want it sawn.

 

_________________
Reguards,

Ken H

I am lucky in that I live in a area that has some very good domestic woods. Sycamore here is considered dunnage lumber and I can get high grade lumber for low cost.
Walnut , Cherry , Osage Orange , and other "local" woods that make good sounding guitars. Unfortunately these woods havn't gained commercial acceptance as of yet.
   India has learned the value of wood managment and EIR is not just harvested from the forest m there is now plantation trees. While these are a bit wider grained it is still sustainable .
    Brazil is trying to control an uncontrollable situation. Slash and burn just doesn't cut it and possible the economy would be in the controlled harvest.
   My 2 cents
john hall

Very interesting thread, and interesting comments. Thanks, everybody.
Since we have to avoid 'political' discussions here, we're unlikely to get to an extensive discussion of the root of the problem in Brazil and other tropical countries: an exploding population which must be fed or given some land to scrape out an existence somehow. We all wring our hands about environmental causes, but nobody has talked about population issues since the 60s. When I was born, the world population was about 2.3 billion, in 1850 about 1.1 billion.

John

[QUOTE=tippie53]
    Brazil is trying to control an uncontrollable situation. Slash and burn just doesn't cut it and possible the economy would be in the controlled harvest.
   My 2 cents
john hall[/QUOTE]

Here Here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree with that too. One trip to South America and you will undrstand why this is an uncontrollable situation.

_________________
Reguards,

Ken H