Future of Ebony and other wood

[Bob Isaac]

A bit worrying:

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anCGvfsBoFY

 

Bob

[EVOL!]

What's so worrying about this? I give Bob a huge props for coming in, buying up the ebony supply chain, and reforming it for the better. He's not only paying the workers a better wage; he is (more importantly) making sure we have ebony down the road. For most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries we harvested and used resources with *very* short sightedness and now we've either damaged the land irreversibly or those resources are just gone. Bob is doing a good thing and it would be an economic benefit to other manufacturers to follow suit. The only sad thing is that we have to wait for someone with enough money and forward thinking to buy the system and convert it.

 

Someday we'll come into the twenty first century and it will be kicking and screaming and by the scruffs of our necks.

 

btw My Taylor acoustic has a lighter colored ebony board. And you know what? It plays and feels just as nice as the pitch black ebony board on my SG Special so we ain't missing anything.

[kidblast]

Hi,,

 

so this has gone around sometime ago, there's some good discussion if you were to go back a few months. The gist of it is, there appears to be plenty of material, just cosmetically not as appealing.

 

/kb

[Malchik]

Quite frankly it makes me ill thinking we spent the last century cutting down all the ebony trees only to take a few select logs and then leave the majority of it in the forest to rot.

 

Frankly, I think streaked ebony is gorgeous, it's looks like a reverse rosewood. Though I'm sure we'll start hearing complaints about why Gibson can't use black ebony like the Les Pauls of the fifties used.

[stein]

While I applaud the thoughts and message of Mr. Taylor here, I am always suspicious of believing what I read or hear and I am reluctant to take it as fact.

 

It is very true that there are supplies of certain woods that have been harvested out of sustainability, but there are also a lot of cases where we have been told a certain wood will be gone to find out the reality is there is plenty.

[CowboyBillyBob1]

While I applaud the thoughts and message of Mr. Taylor here, I am always suspicious of believing what I read or hear and I am reluctant to take it as fact.

 

It is very true that there are supplies of certain woods that have been harvested out of sustainability, but there are also a lot of cases where we have been told a certain wood will be gone to find out the reality is there is plenty.

Can you give me a few examples of that?

[EVOL!]

Can you give me a few examples of that?

 

That is my question too.

[stein]

Sorry if I came across as "expert", which I am not.

 

If memory serves me, Adirondack was supposed to be extinct not too long ago. It would appear not today?

 

As a carpenter, I vividly remember when wood for OUR trade was supposed to be on the way out. It got expensive, too. The reasons given was we were running out, and could not sustain it. Anyone remember? Turns out, we have more now than we did then.

 

Same with oil. At one time about 20 years ago, there were estimates given as fact that there was a certain amount left. Those estimates are much different now.

 

The point I was (and am) trying to make is that with "environmentalism" being such a buzzword today, and a whole industry and political agenda behind it, we should be careful to get the FACTS straight regarding particular things rather than being led to believe everything is endangered just because someone says it is. There are some things that actually are, and some that aren't that poeple say are. It tends to make a guy like me quite cynical regarding conservation and who is making claims.

 

I think a good question would be, how IS the ebony situation? I don't actually know.

[Murph]

 

The point I was (and am) trying to make is that with "environmentalism" being such a buzzword today, and a whole industry and political agenda behind it, we should be careful to get the FACTS straight regarding particular things rather than being led to believe everything is endangered just because someone says it is.

 

Yep.

 

It's all about POWER.

[EVOL!]

At the risk of being labeled a tree hugger or DFH, I error on the side of conservation. Cutting down all of those ebony trees just to harvest one or two is stupid and wasteful when the marbled wood's only difference is appearance.

 

I am just as cynical as the next disappointed idealist, but sometimes it isn't just about power. Being wasteful because you can is myopic selfishness.

[CowboyBillyBob1]

Sorry if I came across as "expert", which I am not.

 

If memory serves me, Adirondack was supposed to be extinct not too long ago. It would appear not today?

 

As a carpenter, I vividly remember when wood for OUR trade was supposed to be on the way out. It got expensive, too. The reasons given was we were running out, and could not sustain it. Anyone remember? Turns out, we have more now than we did then.

 

Same with oil. At one time about 20 years ago, there were estimates given as fact that there was a certain amount left. Those estimates are much different now.

 

The point I was (and am) trying to make is that with "environmentalism" being such a buzzword today, and a whole industry and political agenda behind it, we should be careful to get the FACTS straight regarding particular things rather than being led to believe everything is endangered just because someone says it is. There are some things that actually are, and some that aren't that poeple say are. It tends to make a guy like me quite cynical regarding conservation and who is making claims.

 

I think a good question would be, how IS the ebony situation? I don't actually know.

ABOUT ADIRONDACK - quoted from the article on "Tonewoods" by Dana Bourgeois

 

Adirondack Red Spruce was plentiful in our country before the war and was used on many of the great pre-war guitars. Eastern red spruce, also known as Adirondack or Appalachian spruce, was the primary topwood used by American manufacturers before World War II. Its use was all but discontinued due to over-harvesting of the resource but has recently been reintroduced thanks to 50 years of regeneration and to the legendary status that this traditional tonewood has attained. The small size of most logs and a shortage of wood conforming to market preference for even color and regularity of grain conspire to keep the price of red spruce extremely high.

 

So it seems the conservation efforts were a benifit to keeping this wood alive.

 

 

 

"As a carpenter, I vividly remember when wood for OUR trade was supposed to be on the way out. "

 

I thought carpentry used all kinds of wood depending on the need. What does "wood for our trade" mean?

 

If you look online you will find many articles on the growing scarcity of ebony. I have not been able to find anything that disputes this. If you find something I would love to see it.

 

Weather political or actual the availability of quality tonewood is getting harder to obtain and as a result more expensive. Guitar makers will be looking for suitable alternatives to keep their costs down and make a competitive product.

[stein]

ABOUT ADIRONDACK - quoted from the article on "Tonewoods" by Dana Bourgeois

 

Adirondack Red Spruce was plentiful in our country before the war and was used on many of the great pre-war guitars. Eastern red spruce, also known as Adirondack or Appalachian spruce, was the primary topwood used by American manufacturers before World War II. Its use was all but discontinued due to over-harvesting of the resource but has recently been reintroduced thanks to 50 years of regeneration and to the legendary status that this traditional tonewood has attained. The small size of most logs and a shortage of wood conforming to market preference for even color and regularity of grain conspire to keep the price of red spruce extremely high.

 

So it seems the conservation efforts were a benifit to keeping this wood alive.

 

 

 

"As a carpenter, I vividly remember when wood for OUR trade was supposed to be on the way out. "

 

I thought carpentry used all kinds of wood depending on the need. What does "wood for our trade" mean?

 

If you look online you will find many articles on the growing scarcity of ebony. I have not been able to find anything that disputes this. If you find something I would love to see it.

 

Weather political or actual the availability of quality tonewood is getting harder to obtain and as a result more expensive. Guitar makers will be looking for suitable alternatives to keep their costs down and make a competitive product.

That sounds believable.

[stein]

I think rather than tree-hugger anti tree-hugger, or conservation/anti, I think rather than having 2 sides we should problably try and ALL be on the side of reality, getting TRUE facts, and taking it from there.

 

There are plenty of instances, situations, where things have gone to the point of extinction or endangered. And plenty of examples where lack of knowledge and paying attention has cost an outcome no one really wanted.

 

It is unfortunately something that has such hipness and media attention that putting a label on it has had the consequence of creating controversy, and my complaint is that THAT controversy is making it harder for actual conservation to happen. It cost us all money, it cost us all resources, and it often puts entities on the wrong side that are doing more to actually conserve. It hurts us all when we point fingers with little regard to facts or understanding of intentions.

 

Sinse this is the Gibson forum, I'll cite Gibson as an example. On the whole, Gibson has done more to help the situation than hurt it. And they have done more than MOST industries in creating trade for wood that is on the side of renewable rather than not renewable. Making them the "bad guy" buy the rescent raids has put them out of that game for a time, and the conservation game suffers for it. So why the hell would you want to pit Gibson against the conservationist?

[CowboyBillyBob1]

So why the hell would you want to pit Gibson against the conservationist?

I was not trying to imply that at all. Sorry if it came across that way.

 

It must be extremely hard to run a business when the raw goods you need are so hard to get. Their recent problems are partly of their own doing but thats a whole other discussion.

 

I love my Mahogany, Maple, and Rosewood LP and I thank Gibson for making such a great guitar for a hacker like me.

[milod]

There are a whole range of factors involved in wood of any species that tend, I think, to be little covered depending on "politics" as opposed to science.

 

A perfect example some miles south of me is the way that 20 years ago functionally the "environmentalists" shut down the logging and wood product industry. I figured at the time that some 700 logging-associated good-paying mostly blue collar jobs were lost in the area that had at the time something around a 120,000 population base. You can imagine the economic impact that folks at the time ignored due to "politics."

 

I put "environmentalists" in quotes because there was a tendency not to admit to how logging had replaced nature and fire as a way to clear areas of trees before they became literally a sick forest. The case was made at the time that even fire was good, that trees were "old growth," yada, yada.

 

Today the forest is drying. Period. I won't get into specifics, but the environment became unnaturally crowded and disease and other factors have been involved.

 

Fire danger for the "urban immigrant population" that killed the industry and crippled the forest ecosystem is beyond what may be imagined. Certainly it's beyond what the scientists in the USFS were willing to admit would occur when such lawsuits were shutting things down. One might note that after they left their government jobs, more than a few have come out to tell the story that the consequences were obvious two decades ago, but that it wasn't possible to speak out and keep a job.

 

Bottom line is that IMHO I've seen more "politics" than science in my isolated part of the country - and science subordinated to politics and utopian visions of a pristine forest that never did exist because ... it was not the way the ecosystem worked.

 

Here's another: How'd you like to be told not to graze cattle on your own land within seven miles of a possible historic breeding area for a given bird species? I doubt that two centuries ago the buffalo cared much - and some of the really impartial "science" even indicates that grazing improves the habitat necessary for the birds to do their thing. City folks, however, don't seem to know enough about the way the ecosystems work to admit that science should trump their "rescue" efforts.

 

<sigh> m

[stein]

I was not trying to imply that at all. Sorry if it came across that way.

 

It must be extremely hard to run a business when the raw goods you need are so hard to get. Their recent problems are partly of their own doing but thats a whole other discussion.

 

I love my Mahogany, Maple, and Rosewood LP and I thank Gibson for making such a great guitar for a hacker like me.

Oh no...I didn't mean "you" at all. It was purely a retorical statement. More directed toward "us" as a society or a whole.

 

You bring up, or illustrate my point. Who is responsible, or "partly" reponsible is really small potatoes compared to the question of is it helping or hurting.

 

As a result, when ever I read something, hear of something, am I getting the "small potatoes" of the point, a small piece of the picture? Or is it accurate in it's portayal of the big picture?

 

How much of what we hear, or read, that is said is accurate? How often are what is claimed are the consequences come to be true? THAT's the question. And the question that asked the real question, "how do we tell the difference?".

[milod]

Stein...

 

Believe me, you're only going to hear one side while anybody on the other side is either ignored or portrayed as being an unscientific profiteer - even if they have no real economic dog in the fight.

 

I've seen that one time after time after time. "Don't get the talking heads, find somebody who..."

 

m

[EVOL!]

There are a whole range of factors involved in wood of any species that tend, I think, to be little covered depending on "politics" as opposed to science.

 

A perfect example some miles south of me is the way that 20 years ago functionally the "environmentalists" shut down the logging and wood product industry. I figured at the time that some 700 logging-associated good-paying mostly blue collar jobs were lost in the area that had at the time something around a 120,000 population base. You can imagine the economic impact that folks at the time ignored due to "politics."

 

I put "environmentalists" in quotes because there was a tendency not to admit to how logging had replaced nature and fire as a way to clear areas of trees before they became literally a sick forest. The case was made at the time that even fire was good, that trees were "old growth," yada, yada.

 

Today the forest is drying. Period. I won't get into specifics, but the environment became unnaturally crowded and disease and other factors have been involved.

 

Fire danger for the "urban immigrant population" that killed the industry and crippled the forest ecosystem is beyond what may be imagined. Certainly it's beyond what the scientists in the USFS were willing to admit would occur when such lawsuits were shutting things down. One might note that after they left their government jobs, more than a few have come out to tell the story that the consequences were obvious two decades ago, but that it wasn't possible to speak out and keep a job.

 

Bottom line is that IMHO I've seen more "politics" than science in my isolated part of the country - and science subordinated to politics and utopian visions of a pristine forest that never did exist because ... it was not the way the ecosystem worked.

 

Here's another: How'd you like to be told not to graze cattle on your own land within seven miles of a possible historic breeding area for a given bird species? I doubt that two centuries ago the buffalo cared much - and some of the really impartial "science" even indicates that grazing improves the habitat necessary for the birds to do their thing. City folks, however, don't seem to know enough about the way the ecosystems work to admit that science should trump their "rescue" efforts.

 

<sigh> m

 

 

Please enlighten me on what kind of logging this was. Clear cutting? Responsible stewardship of the forest? I am well aware of clearing underbrush to reduce the need and frequency of forest fires, as natural as they.

 

Replacing logging with suburban sprawl is worse so you've got a valid point there.

[milod]

Evol...

 

Depends on your definition of "clear cutting."

 

Problem is that the forest had been built up already in the 20th century largely as a tree farm since compared to the documented state of the area in photographs from the 1874 Custer expedition that was far, far more spotty than by 1950 when I first was driven through the area.

 

Until the 1980s, the forest service basically had a multiple use mandate. That led to a combination of keeping things pretty for increasing tourists, keeping trees at a sustainable level (although some questioned whether "too many" brought a degree of water supply problems), and a human economic environment with federally-approved harvest plans of a significant pine forest.

 

Prior, a near-zero population density, unchecked fires and such, led to a far different ecosystem than was possible once settlement arrived. I doubt personally it would be politically possible to return to that ecosystem because it would bring fires, questions of predators, smoke, ladadada...

 

So... it became something of a multiple use tree farm that was also great for the economy for tourism, deer hunting and livestock grazing.

 

One might note that the way the industry worked at that time had pretty much all the locals and their paying visitors "happy," regardless. Then the relatively significant influx of persons seeking a home in the beautiful mountain forests brought the avalanche of opposition to any logging whatsoever - even, for a time, the clearing of underbrush - that the whole industry dried up and whole communities saw significant, if not major, economic base removed.

 

Fire concerns are such now that some estimates have been roughly 2,000 deaths in summer, 200 or so in winter from a wildfire. Pine beetle infestation has destroyed any value from major segments of the forest except as tinder.

 

Then a few years ago... thanks to the fire danger of a diseased, overgrown and unnatural "forest," cancellation of a national fireworks display and ... <chuckle> illegal moving of fire safety tree cutting markers by a major player in the anti-logging battles in order to clear a better view of his mountain home... did some of the truth begin to emerge about the anti-ecology effect of "environmentalists."

 

Sheesh, you can fill in the blanks. Yes, I'm all for considerations that bring a functional ecology, but I think "we" often are totally unrealistic in our demands.

 

Yes, it's political, albeit not overtly partisan, because you might note that most of the targets are in areas with insufficient population, money or legislative power to defend themselves.

 

Ever hear anybody seeking to repopulate Manhattan Island with deer, bears and wolves? Or anything else in the northeastern coast that would truly resemble its pre-settlement ecosystem? I don't think so. Therefore, it's moral to shove out those rustics with anachronistic desires to be loggers or ranchers in "our" sparsely populated areas, right?

 

<sigh> We don't have a truly natural ecosystem in the lower 48. Frankly I doubt even if my whole state were blocked out to be a "buffalo common" as proposed in '87, it would truly be possible due to other changes, to return it to the ecosystem seen by Lewis and Clark. And... sheesh, imagine the uproar if nowadays people started a prairie fire to send a message?

 

m

[Aster1]

I would agree with about all of the above. It is totally dumb to leave good striped Ebony laying around to rot instead of selling it to use for something other than total waste. Zebra wood is stripped too and last time I looked it cost a fair penny. Things just need a good balance, but sadly 3rd world countries never are far sighted in thought. Any time you chop down rainforests (never to return) for row crop land is a good example. And when they burned all that great wood, for the most part, really adds "stupid" to the mix. They are focused on eating today and maybe the rest of the week. "To hell with tomorrow as I may never make it that long."

 

On the other hand, a business that will grow Christmas trees to make $$$/profit, and then plant more trees than they would ever harvest, is a good business move. Many will still condemn them for cutting down ANY trees. Milod is correct, for sure, with the tree hugger ideas that have totally backfired and exceeded the devastation of the clear cutting. They've allowed nature to be stifled, bugs to infest, and now that wood is going to be dead with NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT. To me, that is really sad. I think that using our heads/smarts not our emotions, is the path to take. Yeah, I care about things surviving and being around forever if possible. But, when we take action with our emotions bad things come our way. Most businesses don't want to sell themselves out of business ya know.

 

Aster