Madagascar rosewood

[J.Albert]

"There just aren't enough people committed to backing up the laws, so market demand still rules instead"

The market will _always_ rule, regardless of laws which attempt to distort it.
Something about Adam Smith's "invisible hand", so they say.

I don't see too much difference between the pics posted and scenes from strip mining down Appalachia way.

It's a two-edged sword.
To some (usually those of us viewing from a distance) it conjures up "destruction".
To many of the local folks, however, what they see are... "jobs".

The awful reality is that whatever wood there is to be taken, is going to be taken -- if not by those who abide by CITES, then by others. Make something illegal, and often the demand for it _increases_. What is needed are more "managed areas" where the wood is harvested, but in controlled quantities, rather than "banned outright". The "mahogany farms" of Costa Rica are the right approach. This should be done with rosewood, as well.

Bans don't work with _other_ "controlled substances", and they ain't gonna work with wood, either.

As someone already mentioned, the amount of rare woods used for instrument building, vis-a-vis that which is used for [what musicians probably consider] "frivolous" purposes, is miniscule.

Indeed, if that wood is dwinding and eventually going to be gone, it's BETTER that it be used for such things as musical instruments, rather than floors, cabinets and furniture.

- John

[Michael Lewis]

Gibson has used an alternative fingerboard material that wears very well. Not long ago I refretted a Gibson banjo that had the original frets from some 20 odd years. Some frets were worn nearly to the fingerboard surface yet the fingerboard was barely showing any wear. It is a layered fiber material that they also used to face headstocks with and as black as any ebony.

[frankenstein]

I just ordered a Nick Lucas style guitar and decided to experiment with a birdseye fretboard, maple back and sides with a master grade top, Now there is what we should be searching for, a great quality top braced exceptionally well.. if anyone has a guitar like this i'd like to hear your description.. Not sure if we should laquer the fretboard or true oil it. Whatcha think.. I'm willing to experiment with this as the builder is someone i respect. We should all consider what we use and how to use it wisely.

[Jim DeSalvio]

Eventually, as George Carlin said, mother nature is going to deal with us. The planet will survive somehow, but we might not. We will never learn from our past practices. Right now I am watching the movie "The Book of Eli", and that is what the world will look like.......

In the big picture, I think the wood used for instrument production is a tiny fraction of usage, and at least it is around to make music.

[David Newton]

In 1975, when I began building, Bill Lewis, who was one of the first suppliers targeting the "luthier" in North America, preached to us about the dwindling supply of Brazilian Rosewood, which at the time was selling between $35 and $50 a set.

As a hippie who wanted to live purely and lightly on the earth, I decided not to buy and build with Brazilian. It did not matter one whit that I kept my pledge. The market wanted Brazilian and the price it was willing to pay was always equal to the price demanded.
I'm sorry to say that Madagascar will go the same way.

[Paul Kotapish]

Paul H. shepherded a batch of Santa Cruz Model H-13 guitars to completion a few years back, with a number of the instruments featuring alternative woods. Paul's instrument from this run featured sycamore back and sides and coast redwood top. Stunning! Henry Kaiser's had pink ivory and redwood. The results are worth a look: http://lutherie.net/model_h.pix.html

And be sure to look at: http://lutherie.net/model_h.pix3.html

And here's a nifty video I just encountered this morning of Henry Kaiser with a sycamore/redwood Beardsell that sounds--and looks--very striking: http://www.fretboardjournal.com/vide...ardsell-guitar

[John Arnold]

As someone already mentioned, the amount of rare woods used for instrument building, vis-a-vis that which is used for [what musicians probably consider] "frivolous" purposes, is miniscule.
Indeed, if that wood is dwindling and eventually going to be gone, it's BETTER that it be used for such things as musical instruments, rather than floors, cabinets and furniture.

I have seen that rationalization over and over, and I used to subscribe to it myself. Unfortunately, it is IMHO not a valid point of view. Instrument makers drive the train, because they pay much, much more for the wood than nearly anyone else. Couple that with the fact that only a small percentage of the wood cut is instrument grade, and it makes it hard to rationalize any more. The trees are cut mainly for the greatest profit (instrument wood), which is skimmed off the top. Then, the rest of the wood is sold to make furniture or whatever.
Face the facts....as long as we are addicted to tropical hardwoods and old growth softwoods, we are a big part of the problem.
I have built all domestic wood guitars, using second growth red spruce tops. The biggest hurdle is getting the general public to accept the fact that you don't need ebony, rosewood, mahogany, or tight-grained two-piece tops to make killer instruments.

Henry Kaiser's had pink ivory and redwood.

Pink ivory is one wood that I would not include as a solution to the problem being discussed.

[Michael Lewis]

Right on!

I often wonder what will be used to make instruments when wood is outlawed. Probably stuff of old refrigerators, parts of cars, aircraft, vintage CDs, and recycled flat screen TVs.

[Mike Snyder]

Plastic Wal Mart bags. The supply is inexhaustable, but I suppose they are made out of petroleum. One day they'll be dredgeing the Gulf of Mexico for the stuff. I really like the alternative woods used by Bussman.

[fscotte]

Like I said, earlier, human bones. Endless supply.

[oldwave maker]

Was it James Lovelock who said we needed just 7 more planets like ours to sustain our current resource consumption?
Traded my neighbor a mando for a deadstanding 12'x30" canyon black walnut trunk nearly 20 years ago, will be using it for fretboards when I run thru the pile of 100 ebony classical guitar blanks bought from the estate of a deceased guitar builder a few years ago. Fiddlemaker I apprenticed with long ago used it for some fingerboards, said it was harder than hammered owls**t.
Anybody use curly boxelder (acer negundo)? some sticks that heated the house last winter had an excellent tap tone under the splitting ax! grows like a weed even in the stinkin desert.
Still looking for mandobody- sized autoparts:

[Rick Turner]

A couple of fingerboard alternatives are "PakkaWood" and "Dymond Wood". Both are laminates of thin layers of dyed birch impregnated with phenolic resin. I made a jumbo guitar with a PakkaWood fingerboard done in the burgundy/rosewood color and showed it at Healdsburg a few years ago. I didn't say a word about what the fingerboard was, and nobody ever asked. They all just assumed it was rosewood.

Cutting, shaping, and sanding the stuff is kind of a drag...it's hard to machine and it stinks, but it's stiff as can be, it's incredibly tough, and it takes a nice kind of soft buff polish if that's what you want to do. The biggest problem I had was getting really flat sheets of it, but with the addition of some carbon fiber bars in necks, it is OK.

http://www.rutply.com/products/dymondwood.html

Another alternative is resin stabilized wood: http://www.stabilizedwood.com/

[Rob Gerety]

I hate to be pessimistic, but - we're all doomed. Human nature is such that we will continue to reproduce at ridiculous rates until the food supply runs out and we will continue to consume resources at unsustainable rates. Reminds me of a song by Eliza Gilkyson I believe - "The Party's Over". Give it a listen. Good tune. Oh, and one of her other songs - Runaway Train.

Might as well live it up while we still can.

[Ed Goist]

I hate to be pessimistic, but - we're all doomed. Human nature is such that we will continue to reproduce at ridiculous rates until the food supply runs out and we will continue to consume resources at unsustainable rates. Reminds me of a song by Eliza Gilkyson I believe - "The Party's Over". Give it a listen. Good tune. Oh, and one of her other songs - Runaway Train.

Might as well live it up while we still can.

If you've booked passage on the Titantic, there's no sense in going steerage.

[John Arnold]

I don't see too much difference between the pics posted and scenes from strip mining down Appalachia way.

I live in Appalachia, and I see a big difference. In Appalachia, it is only the land that overlies the coal that is directly affected. Few, if any unique species are threatened, even though the local ecology is severely compromised. Those areas have been shown to recover, given a reasonable chance. In Madagascar, there is wholesale destruction of habitat, which does not regenerate because of the tropical ecostructure.

[Paul Hostetter]

I have seen that rationalization over and over, and I used to subscribe to it myself. Unfortunately, it is IMHO not a valid point of view...as long as we are addicted to tropical hardwoods and old growth softwoods, we are a big part of the problem.

I couldn't agree more.

Pink ivory is one wood that I would not include as a solution to the problem being discussed.

That's for certain! On the Model H page that Paul Kotapish linked to I added the story of how and why there was a brief spike in availability of that wood. It's still around, but it's not a player. Here's a photo of a tree growing in someone's front yard (this is a big one):



Click on the image for a good heads-up on the commercial availability. There's a dealer in Zambia whose pink ivory offerings are from trees destroyed by elephants, thus certified for sale legally! The real clientèle for this wood are makers of fountain pens and pool cues.

[Paul Kotapish]

Pink ivory is one wood that I would not include as a solution to the problem being discussed.

Fair enough.

I posted the links mostly to provide some examples of locally accessed sycamore and redwood on Paul and Henry's instruments. The link to Henry's pink-ivory experiment was purely for quirky amusement. I thought it sounded pretty good, actually.

[Paul Hostetter]

It still sounds amazing. And I just had the (Kevin's) bay laurel and red cedar one in a week or so ago for a saddle replacement, it's gorgeous!

People keep saying there's nothing like Brazilian and Madagascar rosewoods tonally.

A) I don't think they're all that close to one another.

B) Two other woods I've found that are very close are padauk (closer to Brazilian) and Osage Orange, which lots of people will react to negatively because it looks so weird. If you take a simple piece of these, like a marimba bar, put on a blindfold, and bang on them, they're really in the same realm.

[Paul Kotapish]

And I just had the (Kevin's) bay laurel and red cedar one in a week or so ago for a saddle replacement, it's gorgeous!

Yep, that's a killer combo, too. Last time I was at Kevin's place I couldn't put that guitar down--it looks and sounds wonderful.

I don't know whether it's been discussed here or not, but I had a killer Lowden that was made of Amazaque (aka Mozambique, ovangkol, and probably a bunch of other names, too) and spruce. I didn't love the way it looked, but the guitar sounded amazing. I believe it is from western Africa--Ghana, Ivory Coast, Gabon--so my guess it that it may be subject to the same issues as most other tropical hardwoods, but it seems to make a good tonewood.

As you have argued often and well, Paul, most of it seems to come down to the skill of the luthier, the refinements of the design, and the very specific characteristics of the specific wood in hand. It's good news for players that many of you are exploring some great alternatives.

[hank]

Good thread Paul, thanks for reminding me of a reality that is often more conveniently forgotten.

[j. condino]

Great thread; I've been lurking for a while. I've had the conversation about Madagascar and several other woods quite a lot over the last 30+ years.

On the other side of the spectrum, for two decades now I've been having conversations with foresters and scientists about the potential of cloning the great tonewoods and growing them in a lab setting. There are certainly other "commodities" that have proven success at growing in a test tube such that the demand and quality outpaces the natural growing methods. Most of the people I have spoken with all agree that the technology is currently available, it just needs to meet a price point to fit the demand and we'll eventually see hydroponically grown curly birdseye Madagascar and Brazilian rosewoods on the commercial market.

In the short run, I'll remind folks of the "Cricket" mandolin; well documented, published, a former guest at Paul's own shop, and currently enrolled in an international recycling design competition:


http://www.condino.com/cricket.html

j.

[Dagger Gordon]

The Cricket looks great. 99% recycled. Good effort - well done.

A fair amount of this thread has -not surprisingly- involved guitars, and I've enjoyed the stuff about the pink ivory etc.
I see Paul has also run this topic on the Acoustic Guitar magazine forum (and possibly elsewhere), and I must say this forum has produced a much livelier discussion than at AG.

Unless the guitar buying public becomes much more interested in this topic, I fear that the likes of Paul's very commendable attempts to raise awareness of it will be in vain.

I'm impressed with the Cricket. If it sounds as good as it looks and got sufficient publicity, you might conceivably manage to start a trend of 'Green' guitars and mandolins. A few big names seen to be playing something like that probably would have some influence, actually.

[thistle3585]

I received this from a woodworking industry magazine this morning in regards to Gibson's Madagascar Ebony troubles. http://woodworkingnetwork.com/Court-...px?oid=1216366

[Paul Hostetter]

Andrew - that link doesn't work. I can't even get into woodworkingnetwork.com. I did use Google cached pages to track their coverage of the issue. Seems like woodworkingnetwork.com has had a long love affair with Gibson.

The Cricket was a terrific mandolin. Long may it chirp!

[mercenarymandolinist]

Is apple heartwood a suitable alternative to ebony or rosewood for fretboard material? Other than that, most of the wood for a mandolin should be available from sustainable sources.