Official Luthiers Forum!

Mattia,
I was wondering what the costs were on that end. I figured it must be something considerable. My last shipment there was ten sets. John, I was able to find this info on Goncalo Alves

Hey Brian.
No problem with your honest assessment. That is exactly what I want. This board is quartered. However, it is also now resawed so a picture of the end grain may be a little sketchy.

Thanks for your internet source. That is an interesting source. I was just a little sorry to read that part that said it did not steam bend. Must be a little like padouk.

[QUOTE=Mattia Valente]
My reason for variety in my wood collection is that that's half the fun of custom guitars, you get to play with a wide variety of different tonewoods.[/QUOTE]

Hey, Mattia, to quote Bill Clinton, "I feel your pain" I ordered a set of curly white oak from Bob C. I know I will have that set for the rest of my life but it is just so cool to have it in my wood collection. I am now looking for a fingerboard and bridge combo made of Texas ebony. Just to have some you know. Have you seen any of that in your part of the world?

[QUOTE=Brian Hawkins] Mattia,
I was wondering what the costs were on that end. I figured it must be something considerable. My last shipment there was ten sets.[/QUOTE]

Brian - well, you know the shipping costs (not inconsiderable, but do-able if we're talking USPS rather than Fedex/UPS/DHL or their ilk), and count between 16% and 20% VAT/Sales Tax (depending on the country. It's 17.5 in the UK, 19 over here. Italy's worse at 20, Spain's better with 16, as is Germany) over the shipment+shipping costs. Depending on the country, there might also be an additional duty over the goods (few percentage points, less than 4% usually), although it seems idiotic for countries with very, very little to no own production to be protecting minute 'native' industries.

Basically, I pay in Euros what things cost in Dollars right now, maybe a hair more to cover shipping, despite the very advantageous exchange rate. There are a few places over here that have a pretty darn good selection of stuff, but nowhere near as many as in the US. The prices are almost always higher, even factoring in the shipping, and with a few exceptions; Euro Spruce is cheap, and the Spanish supply houses have some pretty sharp pricing on some back/side sets.

And then there's customer service, which is generally much better stateside than it is here, and mostly a lot faster. I have to add here, though, that I've only had positive experiences with people like Dave Dyke (luthiers supplies) and Rivolta (who can be a bit slow, but their tops are great, really friendly people, great prices), and my first brush with MadInter was quick and efficient as well. At that point, it's time to play the prices game again.

The added advantage of smaller sellers is also the fact you can choose the exact piece of wood you want to buy, and if you're buying from builders, well, there's no bad there.

[QUOTE=John Kinnaird]
Hey, Mattia, to quote Bill Clinton, "I feel your pain" I ordered a set of curly white oak from Bob C. I know I will have that set for the rest of my life but it is just so cool to have it in my wood collection. I am now looking for a fingerboard and bridge combo made of Texas ebony. Just to have some you know. Have you seen any of that in your part of the world? [/QUOTE]

Sadly not ;-) Plenty of real (and old, and not very cheap) black ebony kicking around here, though. Not much of a market for the stuff, I guess.

I haven't tried pushing weird and wonderful tonewoods on my friends yet; first gotta convince them they want to buy acoustic guitars from me at low low prices. Gotta finance my hobby and all that.

John,
Having taken in all that has been discussed/learned so far, I think that if you can get through the bending you will be OK. What I had trouble with were the two different grains that they mention on that site (probably why they say it does not steam bend very well). If you have an orphan side I would like to try and bend one on a bender that I have used for woods like Lacewood (and other hard to bend woods) with superb results. It is more of a press than anything. I use a heating blanket, foil, white paper towels, distilled water (very little) and two clamps. It is not very pretty and although I did make some minor (but effective) changes to the design it is not my design either but it works great and I am wondering if it would work on the GA. Here's a picture...

John, I'm, currently in the County of Kent, South East of London, but I originate in Northumberland in the wild North East on the border with Scotland. My wife however comes from The Isle of Skye off the West Coast of Scotland, generally said to be the most beautiful place on Earth. (Now there's controversial!) I did live in New York State for three years in the late 1980s when I was a Visiting Professor of Geology at Cornell, most of my time however was spent on field research in the North West US. Never made it to Memphis, but did get to Chicago a few times. After all Muddy Waters moved there and invented electricity!

ColinColin S38376.2193171296

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Brian

The reason your orders from the UK are usually large and of greater variety has several causes. Currently anything that we buy from the USA works out incredibly cheap because of the current weakness of the dollar compared to the pound. For instance a AAA set of Bubinga from the USA costs me the equivalent of less than 2 hours pay! This may not last so many people are stocking up on harder to get woods. Wood that we get sent over also need to sit in the shop for as long as possible, so if I buy wood from the US I usually get wood to use in three or four years time so that by the time I use it, the wood has forgotten that it ever spent time in an unpressurised cargo hold at who knows what humidity. I also don't know what wood I will want in three years time so I might as well have a large range available in my stickers.

That said I get most of my wood from a local supplier as I can visit him and select my boards personally I can give everything a good tapping and inspection before I lay out my money. Building up a relationship with supplier is also very important, if he gets in some 100 years old Brazilian I want him to automatically think of giving me a call! Recently he got some 150 year old Cuban and did just that.

(I love this forum!)

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Colin,
Thank you for the info!! I agree, this is a great forum!!