Conference napalm::guitar

    
    You may have noticed that rosewood is harder to come by these days.  I
    always forget if it's the Indian or the Brazilian variety which can no
    longer be obtained, but check the back of a Martin D-35 sometime to see
    how manufacturers cope with shortages (they use three pieces of rosewood
    on the back, so they can use pieces too small for a whole back).  You
    may have also noted that ebony fingerboards, once commonplace, are now
    only available on the most expensive instruments.
    
    Remember, wood must be aged before it can be used, sometimes for years,
    meaning your guitar came from a tree that was cut down a long time ago,
    most likely.
    
    Besides, if you play a Steinberger, you're partially responsible for
    the Valdez oil spill, so there  8^)  8^)
    
    Of perhaps more impact:  here in the US all CDs come in a throwaway
    cardboard sleeve that serves exactly one purpose: to allow record stores
    to fit CDs into 12" racks intended for LPs.  This is far more wasteful
    than having a guitar (where at least the wood is serving a useful
    purpose).  Complain to your record store.  Write to the record labels
    and complain.  I did hear that a few labels (A&M was one) are
    converting over to recycled cardboard, that's a step in the right
    direction.
    
    						Brian

	Real Ivory? I sent away for the Ovation catalog and when it came
	in last week I was severly bummed out. All of the guitars I was
	interested in had bound necks (yuk 1) which the feature matrix
	describing the guitar said was Ivory (yuk2). My current guitar has
	not a speck of Ivory on it & I'm glad.

	I think a tree is better used to build a guitar than a fire! Least
	ways the guitar will give a nice long slow burn in the right hands.

	One thing I found interesting is that Rickenbacker has frequent
	inspections to certify that the finish spray rooms meet california
	standards for preventing the vapors from escaping into the atmosphere.

    I must admit that I agree on the point of the use of Ivory.  On
    my LP the fret inlays are all "mother of pearl".  I could have got
    the Ivory inlays but that went against my principles (yeah Tony
    I got some....B-)).
    
    I do not however object to the use of exotic woods in guitars, as
    has been said before they are at least being used for a worthwile
    purpose.  Where as we all know of the effects of certain countries
    allowing, (and in my opinion almost certainly giving encentives)
    to the clearing of the rain forrests for the production of "CASH
    CROPS".
    
    But back to guitars, I have not played nor had the desire to own
    any guitar that has Ivory inlays.  It is not nessesary on a modern
    guitar, and in my opinion (again), it is only there to accomodate
    the vanity of the guitarist who buys one with Ivory inlays.
    
    It would shake the major manufacturers into concidering there position
    on the use of exotic materials, if we all stopped buying such
    instruments but unfortunately (and this is not directed at anyone
    in this conference), I have found that many people who play guitar
    (I avoided the use of the word guitarists or Musicians), are really
    only in it for the pose value.
    
    Sorry... did I set flame/on...
    
    In that case 
    
    $SET MODE/FLAME_OFF
    
    BOB

   re: .1  Steinberger/Valdez - I'm rolling!  :-)

   re:  Ivory - I'm with the majority here.  

   re:  Topic in general - actually, there's a followup letter on this topic
   in the April issue of Guitar Player (in the letters section).  It's 
   written by a luthier, and points out (as do comments in here) that when
   the farmers in the rainforest areas are burning 100 acres _per minute_
   or so, the amount of wood used for a guitar is inconsequential.  Now if
   we could find a way to buy the wood from them instead of them burning it
   we might all benefit (they wouldn't have to burn so much for bad farmland,
   etc, etc) unfortunately this "harvesting" is seen as far less "profitable"
   by the farmers than simply burning.

   I'm not a real Greenpeace type either, but this issue with the rainforests
   is one of the most important problems facing the planet today*.  I don't 
   what the solution is.

   -- Sam

   * - I was going to say "burning issue" but really didn't want to go for the
       cheap pun..  Oh, I just did.  :-)

    I just recently ordered a hand made acoustic to built by a guy here in
    the Springs.  He builds amazing instruments.  Anyway, he told me this: 
    There just is NO more Brazilian rosewood still standing on any of the
    lumber conpany's property waiting to be cut.  It's ALL gone, with the
    exception of one standing here or there in somebody's yard!  
    
    Indian is readily available.
    
    With regard to Ivory, without being too much of a card-carrying
    conservationist, I do think it's a serious problem.  I especially think
    it's a damned shame what's happening to the elephants.
    
    I bought the last piece of ivory I'll ever buy a few years ago.  I
    didn't realize the situation had come to what it had.
    
    As an aside, (not to start a big deal) National Geographic can quoted
    as saying this:  We are losing one species to extinction every 15
    minutes!  (Mostly in the rain forests)
    
    It's a confusing state of affairs for me.
    
    Will

    This is definitely an item of concern here.  The supplies of rosewood,
    ebony, mahogany, spruce and many of the other woods commonly chosen for
    the production of instruments have become greatly diminished over the
    past few years.  This is probably not a result of the production of
    musical instruments, but more a result of the fact that these same
    woods are used to build furniture.  

    I do not believe that the harvesting of these particular woods causes a
    major environmental impact.  Whether or not this bothers you or not, it
    affects us as musicians because the lack of availability is forcing the
    prices higher on the wood, which is in turn passed on to us in higher
    instrument costs.

    There is a very interesting article in a recent issue of "The Stringed
    Instrument Craftsman" (a luthiers newsletter) which discusses research
    done to try and locate a suitable substitute for spruce for
    soundboards.  The article suggests a common North American domestic
    tree, the Locust, as a source of fine tone wood.  Unfortunately, the
    tree tends to grow short and "branchy" if it's not groomed, so the
    supply or knot free locust wood, at this point is not that great. 
    However it is relatively economical and I believe that some effort to
    grow groomed locust for this purpose has already begun.

    I think it's been mentioned in here before, but it's kind of funny that
    many of the woods we take as standards for building instruments here in
    the US (especially electric guitars) were not originally chosen
    primarily for their particular suitability for that purpose, but
    because of their economy and availability.  

    Perhaps changing to different woods is more a matter of changing
    mindsets then we seem to think...

    Greg

    
    
    and the worst part is, as someone said previously, that the exotic
    (and becoming more so as we type) woods aren't even being used.  just
    burnt!  i remember a picture taken from the space shuttle, (i think i 
    actually did see it in National Geographic), of a rain forest and all
    the smoke from the clearing fires.  and then they use the land for
    grazing cattle which adventually ends up as a Big Mac or a BK Double
    Cheesburger and the sign says 22 kazillion served and they're proud and
    from the BIZness point of view i guess they should be if they're into
    unconcious, uh... i mean socially unconcious BIZness practices and THEN 
    you would think here in THIS great country we would know *better*, but
    forests, including some with redwoods, are being cut at a
    quick rate in the Pacific Northwest only to be loaded onto big boats
    and floated off to Japan where OUR trees are stored away in warehouses
    for THEIR later use.  Why????  Because it's BIZness...
    
    from the point of view of the farmers in the rain forests though...
    i think they're mostly concerned with feeding their families and thats
    their first priority.  the immediate solution for them is to burn the
    forests and farm for $$$'s.
    
    ... ahh... the afternoon coffee always gets me a little jumpy... 
    
    
    ben.

	Interesting topic. I have some fairly nice pieces of Brazilan
	Rosewood out in my garage, I've had it for years. It's slab cut
	and that makes it a bit un-trust worthy for backs and side.

	I decided a few years ago not to use woods that were endangered.
	The Brazilan Rose wood tree gains its unique coloration by the
	process of decomposition from the heartwood out (the center of
	the tree). The entire process may take 200 years. If you cut
	down a Rosewood tree, you may find that only the center 2 or
	3 inches of a tree that is 3 foot in diameter has the coloration
	that is desired. What a waste of a healty tree. As I understand
	it, the varieties of Brazilian Rosewood that are most in demand
	are extinct, and because of the time required for the decomposition
	inside the tree is too long for effective tree farming.

	As it turns out, there are lots of woods that work quite well.
	Leo Fender chose the cheapest and most effective woods he could
	for his mass produced instruments. These are now considered the
	standard woods to use, they were considered inferior back in the
	late 1940's when he started designing. Not a lot of woods wear as
	well as Rosewood or Ebony, and these are still used heavily for
	fretboards, but woods like Maple or Mahogany (there are tree farms
	in Honduras that produce Mahogany) work fine for necks. In India,
	there are Rosewood tree farms (It's a different tree than that in
	Brazil and grows much faster), but even then, it's hard to keep
	up with the demand.

	People use what's available. When it isn't available anymore, then
	they try something else. I for one believe that it's better to
	build new guitars out of available and non-threatened woods. Good
	things happen to innovators, but sometimes it takes a while to
	gain acceptance. I have some exotic woods, but I know that when 
	they are gone, they are irreplaceable. You can still find a few
	pieces of back wood / sides out of Brazilian Rosewood, but expect
	to pay $400.00 to $1000.00 for a set.

							Jens

re: .7

   What's even worse is that they're burning the forests because the soil
   needs the ash for nutrient content since it's too poor for farming in
   the first place.  So they wouldn't even consider logging it even it were
   financially viable (not that I'd advocate kill the forests in any way).

   All the while the US Goverment pays it's own farmers NOT to grow crops
   so they can keep the price of bread stable.  Why not just sell (give?)
   it to Honduran farmers?

   What a wonderful world we live in.  (But it *is* better than the 
   alternative.)

   -- Sam

Gee I know a luthier who has a gob of Brazillian rosewood backs sized to fit
martin's (they were Martin rejects from the '60's that he just bought)

According to him, the best rosewood I can buy today!

dbii

    
    	Re-.1
    	The D-35 has sides and 3-piece back made of Jacaranda.
    	I don't think Jacaranda is a type of rosewood, but I
    	do know that the D-35 was made that way long before
    	the rosewood shortage. Anybody know where Jacaranda
    	comes from?
    
    	Neal
    

    
    Just to add some more political mind-rot to the discussion:
    
    The Brazilian farmers are farming not because they need all the produce
    in Brazil but because Brazil needs to export the produce to help pay
    off its staggering debt, which is owed to the US and other developed
    nations.  And since we control their credit, we tell them, OK, to pay
    off your debt, you should develop your agriculture, etc.  So they grow
    more produce, supply goes up, prices go down, we get to buy it cheaper,
    they don't make enought to put a dent in their debt. How *convenient*
    for us, eh?
    
    I heard a very sobering lecture once on "Third World Debt as an
    Instrument of War".
    
    
    						Brian

    �   the farmers in the rainforest areas are burning 
    �   100 acres _per minute_
    
    Quite a far cry from what one might guess would be the rate of
    destruction, eh?  This is almost impossible to imagine (ya know...
    like a trillion dollars is... just beyond our realm of experience).
    Really puts the problem into perspective.
    
    								Marc
   

    
    	Thanks for the replies chaps,  it's all very sobering & somwhat
    emotional.  It's good to see a consensus that Ivory is best left on the
    elephant.  Also I didn't realise Brazilian Rosewood was extinct, thats
    really sad.
    
    Cheers
    		Pete.
    

    A couple of items:
    
    1) So much is said about what's happening to Brazian rosewood.  It's
    sad since it is the wood of choice for acoustic giutar backs and sides. 
    I believe that it is the most beautiful wood there is, and may well be
    the best wood for sonic properties.  (I have a 1985 Martin OM-45 Custom
    with Brazilian.)  But many thousands of Sitka spruce trees a year in
    Alaska end up in Japan for -- tooth picks and chop sticks!!!  Wait a
    minute here!  And that's because our sensitive US government, yes the
    same ones who were watching the S&L's, are blind to the indescriminate
    destruction of these resources.  Not good.  Anyway, when I look at the
    price sheets for guitars these days, people like Martin, Taylor and
    Santa Cruz quote premiums of $700-1,100 for Brazilian - when it's
    available.  BTW, I've seen a few new Brazialian Martins in the last
    year or two that were disappointing in their sound.
    
    2) I didn't think any of the major companies used real ivory for
    anything, other than perhaps for custom nuts and bridge saddles. 
    Martin hasn't used it in binding since about 1920.  Even on their most
    expensive guitars they have used ivoroid which is a yellowish/white
    plastic made to look like ivory.  I have a friend in Alaska who has
    been written up in FRETS and guitar player who makes nuts, bridge
    saddles, bridge and end pins from ivory, but it is fossilized ivory
    that comes from some special place in Alaska (he collects it in the
    field) and it makes a great material for these applications.  I would
    not buy anything that endangered a species of animal, but these have
    been installed on my D-28 and they have improved the sound
    considerably.
    
    Paul
    

>>    But many thousands of Sitka spruce trees a year in
>>    Alaska end up in Japan for -- tooth picks and chop sticks!!!  

	This is not as bad as you might think. Stika spruce, like other
	conifers (pine for example), tends to grow in a slight spiral.
	If you see some dead trees in a forest, and the bark is off, you'll
	see this (you can see it on some 'rustic' type of buildings also,
	where they use a whole tree trunk as a support - these are common
	out in the Western part of the U.S.A.). The point is, that if the
	tree has grown with a spiral grain, you really can't use it for
	guitar tops (unless the spiral is extreamly slight). This eliminates
	approximately 98% of any trees in a forest cutting area. The trees
	that don't have the problem command excessively high prices, and
	are usually graded an sold by the wood cutters for the purpose of
	making fine guitar tops. The rest of the trees are not being thrown
	away (any more than the trees cut down and products used to make
	houses, books, tissues, etc.).

	Martin occasionally uses Engleman Spruce (from the Rockies) because
	it posseses similar qualities to Sitka Spruce, but the trees
	are not physically as large, so fewer quality tops come from a single
	tree (the diameter of a Sitka tree trunk is 2 to 3 feet, an Engleman
	tree trunk is 14 to 22 inches). You need at least 9 inches of wood
	from the heartwood out for a quality top. You also want a tree that
	has taken a long time to slowly grow, hence the annual rings are
	very close together. In general it takes 300 to 500 years to grow
	this type of tree.

	Second growth (trees that sprout from the cut down tree trunks) is
	unacceptable for guitar tops because the growth is too fast, hence
	the annual rings in the trees are too far apart to meet the needs of
	a guitar top.

	You'll pay $50.00 to $100.00 for a master grade top of Sitka or
	Engleman Spruce, $10.00 to $20.00 for a lesser grade.

	People are also using Redwood for tops (they are thicker).
    
								Jens

    re .11   Jacaranda (pronounced Jack-a-ran-da) is common in Florida
    and other south east states.  When my wife lived in Florida, they
    had a couple in the front yard.  Many people like them because it
    is a "flowering tree".  If you want to grow you own, I know where
    you can buy seedlings...
    
    
    Guess it helps when your father-in-law owns a garden center... ;-)
    
    
    
    
    Don

    I grew a jacaranda and they are great, lots of purple fowers in spring.
    
    I have seen the pictures of massive wood cutting in the small south
    pacific Islands were ebony grows and it is rapidly going to become
    extinct at the current rate of cutting.  I mean these islands are
    stripped of the wood (the dark wood IS the core) and then abandoned
    (the island) for pure profit.  These were striking pictures taken by
    my mother-in-law who is sailing around the world and stopping at these
    very small islands were they are the only contact they have had with
    civilitation for six months or more at times except for the loggers who
    buy the wood for real cheep.  They have no concept of what it would
    mean for this to occure and they seem to want to cut it all down as
    fast as possible until it is gone.
    
    Sounds like what happened to Europe centuries ago!  They stripped all
    of the trees for their own purpose and now we are telling developing
    countries they can't do what we did ourselves because were smarter then
    that now.  Well it is not fair to them to have the same oppertunity for
    development as we did centuries ago and if it was not done in Europe
    then it would not be a problem not in south america now since Europe
    would be the great forrest it once was and the CO2 would be processed
    there.
    
    Oh well I'll just have to take this out on my guitar and play a "dead
    tree solo".
    
    will
     

    These are pretty grim tales.  How about a twist to this by telling
    about alternative materials used in the construction of quality
    instruments?

    I know of a few instances.  Ovation has used synthetic materials for
    the backs of their guitars for years.

    Steinberger uses composite synthetic materials in the construction of
    their instruments and the results are excellent.

    I played a Washburn awhile back that had a graphite fretboard (but it
    felt terrible).

    Travis Bean (among others) made guitars with aluminum necks (beastly
    heavy though).

    Anyone know of others?

    Greg

    
    Air guitar? ;-)
    
    J-dotsy

Martin was still using ivory on some of their high end guitars as late as 1980.

As for close grained spruce tops, there is much disagreement about this.  I
prefer a wider spaced grain (say about 10/inch).  Les Wagner, head of the custom
shop at Martin, does not recommend tightly spaced grained tops "because they do
not vibrate freely enough".  I guess this is a "tastes great/less filling" type
of decision.

Jim

    There are a number of misconceptions about the endangered materials
    used in guitars.
    
    Brazilian Rosewood stopped being available for guitars in the US in the
    late '60's not because of scarceness, but because Brazil refused to
    export logs so that their local mills could get the profit from cutting
    the lumber. Since it is much more efficient to slab cut than quarter
    saw, that's what they did. Great for furniture, useless for
    dreadnaughts. The current moderate availability is the result of their
    agreeing to cut the stuff properly or export uncut logs.
    
    If there was a *greater* demand for Rosewood, the rainforest life would
    be extended. Right now it's more valuable to Brazil's economy as
    farmland.  Buy a D-28, save the world.
    
    Elephant ivory has not been used by any major US make for years.
    "Ivory" binding is in fact Ivoroid, a plastic. "Ivory" nuts and saddles
    are either bleached cattle bone or fossilized walrus ivory, neither
    endangered nor in short supply.
    
    Abalone is often pointed out as endangered, but this is due to
    harvesting for food (the Japanese eats tons of it). If you didn't use
    it for inlay, it would just get thrown away. Ovation uses domestic
    snail shell, which is very pretty (the inlay, not the animal) and more
    a pest than endangered.
    
    Most of the instrument grade Sitka spruce goes into pianos.
    
    Except for the fretboard, archtops can be built from all domestic
    woods. Solids can be built from anything, including plastic. Only
    flattops have a supply problem for the bodies, again, except for
    Ovations.
    
    Soapbox, unrelated to guitars: Comparing the clearing of the American
    and European forests to that of the rainforest is inappropriate. The
    rainforest is far more important to mankind's future than all the other
    forests ever were, in terms of climate, air quality and as unique home
    for uncounted species that live nowhere else. It is interesting to note
    that there is now more forest in New England than there was 100 years
    ago. In many parts of the world, the forested areas have expanded as
    agriculture became more efficient.
    
    Danny W. 

    re .22:
    
    Interesting to read, hope you're right. But where did you get this
    information from? I have a hard time believing that there is "more"
    forest in NE now than 100 years ago, especially Southern NH for the
    past ten years!! And what about "Brazilian Rosewood stopped being
    available for guitars in the US in the 
        late '60's not because of scarceness, but because Brazil refused to
        export logs so that their local mills could get the profit from
    cutting
        the lumber. Since it is much more efficient to slab cut than
    quarter
        saw, that's what they did."
    
    How do you know about this? Not that I disagree with you, its like I
    said, I hope you're right. Especially about land in Brazil right now
    being more valuable as farmland.
    
    Sakman

	For one thing the parks system has eaten up what used to be
	a lot of marginal farm land. This recently (< 100years ;))
	aquired land has been reforested. If you look at a map of
	NH you'll notice this White Mountains National Forest that
	wasn't there not too long ago.

    My knowledge of the Brazilian Rosewood situation is mostly from reading
    daily newspapers during the '60's, when info like this was current
    events--believe it or not, stuff like foreign trade was  in the news
    even then :-). For a guitar maker's POV, read the Martin Story. There
    have also been articles in Guitar Player, Tom Wheeler's books and
    others about it. This is not to say that this wood has not gotten
    scarce, but there is actually a better supply available to luthiers
    today than there was 10 or 15 years ago.
    
    Your local forest service is a good source of forest maps going back
    many years. However, despite the building you see in southern NH, most
    of VT, NH and ME have always been forest and still are. Most of the
    development is going on what used to be farmland, not forest.
    
    Eastern MA was virtually all farmland in the mid 1800's. Local wood
    supplied both all building and fuel requirements. If you don't want to
    research it yourself, you might consider why all the local forests have
    stone walls throughout them and why most of the trees are only 2-3 feet
    in diameter. The answer to the first question is that the woods used to
    be farms, and the walls are made from the stones plowed out of the
    fields. The answer to the second is that these forests are only 60-70
    years old, or newer.
    
    The National Park Commission would like to return Minutemen National
    Park to the state it was in at the time of the American Revolution.
    This would require removing all the trees surrounding route 2A--in the
    late 1700's, there was hardly a tree standing in Concord, MA, except
    shade trees on house lots. If you'd like to imagine what it looked
    like, try driving through parts of Ohio or Kansas. Not quite as flat,
    but just as devoid of trees. Most of the local residents are not in
    favor of this plan!!! 
    
    Danny W. 
    
    
    

Danny's right about the tropical hardwoods and the North American forests.
My source for the former is the same as his - being old enough to remember 
when it was news.  The latter is a statistic often cited by the Interior
Dept., though their numbers are a little misleading because a lot of what they 
count as forest is really tree farm.  

Forest = natural, equal opportunity

Tree farm = poison the hardwoods, plant hybrid fast-grow pines

A lot of National Forest land is managed primarily as tree farm - in the 
South, anyways.  Still, there is more real forest today than 100 years ago.
300 years ago is a very different story.

Bob

Back to guitars...

    Well guys, I'm glad to hear about all this. Consider me edified!
    
    Sakman

    
    Yeah,  Well done New England sounds like a few other places in the
    world (especially southern UK) could do well to follow your example.  
    I like trees & I don't like people who don't :-|.
    
    Cheers
    		Pete.