Members RaVenCAD Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 Gentlemen - and I do use that term exceedingly loosely - it is time for another essay. This time, my task is to write about a problem, offer 2-3 possible solutions, refute them, and explain why I think my solution is the best. I've chosen over-harvesting of exotic hardwoods used in guitar making. I realize that the furniture industry is a much larger consumer of hardwoods, but I don't give a {censored} about furniture. So, guitars it is. So, when I need to ask of you fine (ahem) people is for some factual data NOT FOUND AT WIKIPEDIA.. (we're specifically banned from using Wiki due to the entire potential bull{censored}-ish nature of the site..) Journals, tree hugger websites (.orgs, mostly) or anything else you can contribute will be greatly appreciated. Some things I'm looking for are specific species wood that are endangered or banned, (such as Brazilian rosewood) hard numbers on the tons of woods consumed anually, and information on renewable hardwoods that are being farmed. Data on successful wood farming would be helpful too. One of my possible solutions is the use of composites like carbon fiber and plastic. This one I'll refute by talking about the lack of acceptance by traditionalists and purists because they don't sound nor look like classic instruments. So anything you have on synthetic guitars would be great. This is kind of open-ended, but I hope some of you understand what I'm asking for. If not, thanks for reading anyway.. btw, my topic is not up for debate. My task is to choose a problem and attack it with solutions and convince you, my reader, to buy into it. My stance in this essay is that the guitar playing world needs to embrace more renewable sources of wood and leave the old growth stuff alone. Agree or disagree, I don't care. My task is just to present an argument.. I'm sure most of you agree that I can do that quite well.. :poke: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dimmypage Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 Some things I'm looking for are specific species wood that are endangered or banned Gibson Mojo wood sorry I have no stats available:facepalm: Good luck though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RaVenCAD Posted October 21, 2009 Author Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 nonono, Gibson mojo wood is easy to make. Slap the Gibson logo on it and BAM, instant mojo baby! The price goes crazy, but then, so does yer mojo, yeah... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dimmypage Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 nonono, Gibson mojo wood is easy to make. Slap the Gibson logo on it and BAM, instant mojo baby! The price goes crazy, but then, so does yer mojo, yeah... Good One:thu: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mc_carlini Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 .gfghh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RaVenCAD Posted October 21, 2009 Author Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 .gfghh now there is the kind of input that'll really help me out.. Dimmy, you've been very agreeable lately.. Are you feeling ok? Not been body-snatched and replaced by some sort of "row-bot" have you? With frickin laser beams on your head? (can you tell what movie somebody watched earlier tonight?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dimmypage Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 now there is the kind of input that'll really help me out.. Dimmy, you've been very agreeable lately.. Are you feeling ok? Not been body-snatched and replaced by some sort of "row-bot" have you? With frickin laser beams on your head? (can you tell what movie somebody watched earlier tonight?) maybe:confused: Really its been you comming to your senses:thu: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Caleb B Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 Does your little man ever get tired Raven? I often find myself waking up night feeling sorry for him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RaVenCAD Posted October 21, 2009 Author Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 pshh.. Fat chance of that.. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RaVenCAD Posted October 21, 2009 Author Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 Does your little man ever get tired Raven? I often find myself waking up night feeling sorry for him. NEVER! He's a metal GOD! But I've been considering getting a new AV.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dimmypage Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 RC you know I would do anything to help a kid graduate from High School:thu: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kingsransom Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 So if I understand you correctly: PROBLEMThe traditional woods used in fine guitarmaking are becoming scarce or endangered. SOLUTION 1Replace these woods with man-made materials such as carbon fiber. SOLUTION 2Replace these woods with other more common and easy to replenish woods. etc, etc, etc... You should be able to get stats on various wood species from any university library. Are there any near you? Also, look up articles by George Gruhn related to the CITES treaty (I think that is spelled right). Bob Taylor has also written about this in past issues of Wood and Steel magazine, the Taylor Guitars promo rag - check their website for articles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SuproSuper Man Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 not sure raven , but you might find it difficult to get hard true factual numbers .. the reason im thinking that, is that alot of the timber is being harvested illegally, and smuggled out of the countries... I think it was last winter here in canada that our canadian forestry services (tree police..lol.) were trying to hunt down and find out who was responsible for "poaching" (the term they used) maple trees on Indian reserve land, apparently the trees stolen off the land were rare birds eye maples... so im just saying that we cant control it here so i assume the problem is even greater in third world nations ...so I think any numbers you do find might be way off , since I think no one really knows how much the black market trade is harvesting and smuggling out behind law enforcements back so to speak... here are some links to tree poaching articles Link to Canadian national Broadcasting News service - Link http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/10/04/bc-maplepoachers.html link to another article - Link http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/rss/article/648342 sorry i cant find you anything more pertanent to what your looking for raven but maybe you can find some use for this stuff.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RaVenCAD Posted October 21, 2009 Author Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 RC you know I would do anything to help a kid graduate from High School:thu: LOL! It's a creative writing class required for my mechanical engineering degree.. =P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kingsransom Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 Here's a definition of CITES as referenced on Taylor's website: CITES: stands for Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (of Wild Fauna and Flora); this organization, which boasts a membership of 145 countries, bans commercial international trade in an agreed-upon list of endangered species, and regulates and monitors trade in others that might become endangered. The 1992 CITES treaty prohibited the harvesting and exportation of coveted Brazilian rosewood. Although this coveted tonewood is not indigenous to the Amazon rainforest, the rapid depletion of the species and the lack of a re-forestation program eventually led to a treaty by which Brazil is prohibited from harvesting and exporting its rosewood. The Brazilian rosewood Taylor uses to make guitars is "pre-treaty" wood that has been curing in log form for many years. http://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars/reference/glossary.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kingsransom Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 Here's some info from Gruhn, one of the most noted vintage guitar dealers in the world: http://www.gruhn.com/newsletter/newsltr29.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RaVenCAD Posted October 21, 2009 Author Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 not sure raven , but you might find it difficult to get hard true factual numbers .. the reason im thinking that, is that alot of the timber is being harvested illegally, and smuggled out of the countries... I think it was last winter here in canada that our canadian forestry services (tree police..lol.) were trying to hunt down and find out who was responsible for "poaching" (the term they used) maple trees on Indian reserve land, apparently the trees stolen off the land were rare birds eye maples... so im just saying that we cant control it here so i assume the problem is even greater in third world nations ...so I think any numbers you do find might be way off , since I think no one really knows how much the black market trade is harvesting and smuggling out behind law enforcements back so to speak... here are some links to tree poaching articles Link to Canadian national Broadcasting News service - Linkhttp://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/10/04/bc-maplepoachers.html link to another article - Linkhttp://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/rss/article/648342 sorry i cant find you anything more pertanent to what your looking for raven but maybe you can find some use for this stuff.. Illegal harvesting, that's a great angle for the part I'm going to do about the public (us) decreasing demand for these woods.. Less demand = less incentive to harvest illegally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RaVenCAD Posted October 21, 2009 Author Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 kingsransom, awesome stuff.. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RaVenCAD Posted October 21, 2009 Author Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 Mahogany - which is the rare one? African or Honduran? I'm pretty sure it's Honduran.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SuproSuper Man Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 we do alot of renovations in office towers, and its sad that alot of the exotic wood furniture and wall paneling on fancy rich corporate office floors just gets tossed out when they feel its time for a new renovation or office space makeover...such a waste, and i think it all gets written off in their taxes so they have no incentive to stop this sort of wasteful practice.... anyway i mentioned this once before in these forums so thats all i wanna say is corporate north America needs to be more enviro-conscious .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DaleH Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 MusicWood Coalitionhttp://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007135.html You could check out what you can find on pernambuco wood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the new guy Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 Mahogany - which is the rare one? African or Honduran? I'm pretty sure it's Honduran.. Honduran is disappearing fast........... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Caleb B Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 NEVER! He's a metal GOD! But I've been considering getting a new AV..Hah, awesome. I like him, keep em around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SuproSuper Man Posted October 21, 2009 Members Share Posted October 21, 2009 MusicWood Coalitionhttp://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007135.htmlYou could check out what you can find on pernambuco wood. great link dale, just read some of it , wow 80 percent of northamerican sitika spruce is being shipped to asia to build houses, what a waste of a 250 year old tree to turn it into a lousy 2x4 stud hidden in some wall.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Virgman Posted January 23, 2015 Members Share Posted January 23, 2015 Save a tree, plant a guitar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.