Official Luthiers Forum!

Having just seen Paddy D's latest "wood fix" post (what's the wood equivalent of methadone Paddy? ) and a post by Bruce Sexauer on the 13th Fret, it looks as though Kauri is available outside of New Zealand.

According to Laurie Williams' website:

"Today any logging of Kauri on private land is strictly controlled. Consequently it is not really available in any commercial quantities. Additionally, all export of this timber is restricted and can only be exported as finished goods i.e. guitars etc."

What gives here? Does this control only apply to Kauri and not Ancient Kauri (the submerged thousands of year old stuff)?

I'd be interested to hear from the OLF woodsuppliers on this one.

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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

hi dave,

i got the one and only set that steve had, i have spoken to people in new zealand before and they could only do solid body guitar blanks, no acoustic billets,

i'm sure someone has some somewhere the trees are enormous!!

If anyone has even a piece of Kauri scrap from saw cuts, i'd be delighted to have it!

I saw that someone here in the US plans to make a guitar from the New Zealand wood, ancient Kauri. A while back, a couple of us were going to get some of this stuff to saw up into sets. When we checked into it a little further, we decided to stay away from it because of the export rules. It is really neat stuff and it has a great story behind it.

I did a google on ancient kauri and there is someone in the US that is selling in boards. I dunno if its legal... There are so many tonewoods out there though, so I have since decided to leave that particular tonewood in the very capable hands of Laurie Williams.

We just had a set of this stuff in our wood shed.

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

It can be had of you look hard enough, but as John said, you really have to jump through hoops to get it and the shipping is insane.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

As a gift, a friend sent me a 12" wide x 60" long 8/4 board of QS ancient kauri (the stuff that was mined, I guess). It's very pretty, though quite soft, so I am sure it would not be my first choice for b/s sets.

I'm reasonably sure he got it from Wisconsin:

Hobbit Wood

That's got to be the most highly priced wood I've seen.
They did have one piece there that was $7K that looked nice.
I'll have to call...

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"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."

I saw two planks of it at the NAMM show, in the possession of a west coast
USA wood dealer.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Kauri grows in Australia too iirc, though not the ancient stuff.

If you guys really want some perhaps you could source it from here. Maybe Tim at Australian Tonewoods could hunt some down for you?

I just don't understand the excitement about Kauri, other than the "ancient" gimmick. Now, I've read that it has some good luster under finish when seen in person, but so does a lot of much less expensive wood (like redwood, or some mahogany), but otherwise it seems pretty plain. What am I missing?

   Carlton, you'd have the see the 'Whitebait' figured Kauri. So named for it's likeness to a school of whitebait fish frolicking happily in the ocean... It's the rarest of figures for Kauri wood and it does look quite amazing. Williams had a 'white bait' guitar on dreamguitar.com that was almost 30K... Alain Desforges38792.9233680556

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

[QUOTE=Alain Desforges]     Williams had a 'white bait' guitar on dreamguitar.com that was almost 30K... [/QUOTE]
For just the back & sides, or the whole guitar?    Nope, I haven't seen the "white bait" figure. That sounds interesting, but man, so many people have gotten so excited about, what to me, seems like pretty unextarordinary wood being sold at extraordinary prices.

I got these pictures from Dreamguitars.com. This is the 'Whitebait' Kauri.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

Carlton, I agree. I find it's very nice, but not as nice, say, as that exhibition grade Macassar Ebony Doug had at Blue Spirit ot that rare White Ebony Bob has on deck...   The Whitebait doesn't turn my crank enough to have me part with that kind of squeela!

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

O.K., the "white bait" stuff looks pretty good, but put it up against the Taz. Blackwood that "Black Swan" Tim posted earlier and it looks like brown shoes at a formal dinner!

Cartlon I agree.. I think the story that goes along with it is cooler than the actual wood.. Those are like dinosaur trees.. Crazy you can bury something for that long then dig it up and build instruments and furniture with it.

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CVT Inc.
A tour of our shop (Somewhat outdated)
My Personal eBay profile. BCWoodBug

I agree, nice wood, great story, unique figure, but is it as nice as the dollars demand.......not for me. I have seen some woods on the OLF like the ones mentioned I personally liked better and might could afford.

Mike
White Oak, Texas

Beauty in this case is in the eye of the beholder but if i might add, i know there is a video on a website somewhere, perhaps Laurie Williams, i'm not sure, but the video gave more justice to my eyes than a still photograph. In the video, the person showing the guitar is turning it 360 degrees and you can see this awesome wood shine like wavy gold ! If anyone knows about this video, please post a link to it, it's really worth looking at it!

Serge

Serge,

It's here on Laurie Williams' website: Whitebait

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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

Thanks a lot Dave, isn't it awesome to look at this?

[QUOTE=Brock Poling]
We just had a set of this stuff in our wood shed.

[/QUOTE]

I know. The price was very reasonable in comparison to some other woods I have purchased.Don A38794.7905208333

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

I can probably get more, if anyone's interested.

Doug, is it possible you have a problem with your website? Might just be my computer though, i can seem to get to your site?

Serge,
I went there from the Sponsor's button on the top of this page, and had no problem.
I then opened another browser and went to my site without going through the OLF, and had no problem. So from my end, I can get there. That does not mean there might not be a problem, though.
Maybe someone else might try, just to be sure?