Taylor Guitars "The State of Ebony" (Bob Taylor Video)

[Walney Col]

Having only just recently aquired an interest in guitar making I was shocked to find out how little of it there is left in the world. If you aren't already aware of this video I can highly recommend it.

Taylor Guitars "The State of Ebony" - Bob Taylor Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anCGvfsBoFY

Col.

 

[NazNomad]

Interesting video, but has Bob never heard of bookmatched pallet-wood?

My point being, instead of cutting down trees, re-use wood from other sources.

A Taylor in the right hands sounds great, but so does a guitar made from scrap.

You don't need near-extinct tonewoods to make a great sounding guitar.

#controversial.

 

[giantbeat]

great video, its something we need to promote more in the instrument industries that alternatives do exist & should be looked into. i make drums for a living and a lot of exotics have become very fashionable in both stave, solid formats, not just veneers.

i suspect this video was done around the times Gibsons factories were raided & caught with a lot of illegal & engendered wood stock.

 

[custard]

Great video, thanks for posting.

It's not only Ebony. There's quite a large number of timbers which you can buy today but that probably won't be available in ten or twenty years. I hear from several timber yards that decent quality Wenge is getting harder and harder to source . Mahogany quality has been falling for as long as I can remember, Cuban Mahogany pretty much disappeared between the wars, Brazilian Mahogany is now unobtainable, and the best grades of Honduran Mahogany are now very difficult to find in larger board sizes.

And it's not only tropical timbers, astonishingly European Walnut is now on the CITES lists, admittedly it's not at the highest risk grade, but the fact that it's made an appearance at all is a wake up call.

Furniture makers effectively face the same dilemma that's spelled out in your video, do you use "lower grades" of big name timbers, or do you walk away from those timbers completely? It's just my own personal view point but I'm more inclined to abandon using them altogether, I'm not going to use sappy Walnut or grey streaked Holly or flat and dull Rosewood or coloured Ebony. I've had a few experiences recently where I've picked over the boards available in a yard (often when it's a fresh delivery so I'm getting first dibs) I've taken the best boards and got them back to my workshop, only to see that they're noticeably poorer than the same species timbers that I've got in stock. It won't take too many occurrences like that and I'll start to re-think which species I use.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Can we look forward to your new "medite" range Custard

 

[bugbear]

It's not only Ebony. There's quite a large number of timbers which you can buy today but that probably won't be available in ten or twenty years. I hear from several timber yards that decent quality Wenge is getting harder and harder to source . Mahogany quality has been falling for as long as I can remember, Cuban Mahogany pretty much disappeared between the wars, Brazilian Mahogany is now unobtainable, and the best grades of Honduran Mahogany are now very difficult to find in larger board sizes.

And it's not only tropical timbers, astonishingly European Walnut is now on the CITES lists, admittedly it's not at the highest risk grade, but the fact that it's made an appearance at all is a wake up call.

As long as we don't do what some of the Victorian specimen hunters (taxidermy) did.

When they heard that a species was near extinction, they would URGENTLY go and hunt a specimen, because there soon wouldn't be any. :-(

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

BugBear

 

[thick_mike]

It's like having a leopard fur coat, that would be seriously uncool...or eating panda and chips!

For some reason objects made from exotic, rare woods are still seen as fair game in a way that ivory or fur isn't.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I'm as enchanted by a beautiful piece of timber, or something nice made from it, as the next person, but I also get an uneasy feeling when I'm looking at a store of exotic timbers - similar to seeing something like this: http://observer.com/2013/02/to-do-sunda ... -new-york/

An interesting blog about mahogany etc. from someone who restores old furniture (and thus has a need for matching material):
http://periodcraftsmen.blogspot.co.uk/2 ... ogany.html

I think that a major importer of all sorts of timber is China - environmental concerns are never high on their agenda. I read that, over the last 40 years or so, one Chinese near-neighbour - Cambodia - has gone from 70% forest cover to 3% - of course the USAF could be partly responsible for this!

I do wonder where all the cheap European oak is coming from - Balkans/Siberia? - I know a fair bit is farmed in France, but I find it hard to believe that our overall oak population is not reducing each year.

Cheers, W2S (seriously contemplating planting some English walnut trees for the grandkids)

 

[NazNomad]

..or eating panda and chips!

:shock: :shock: Where were you offered that? I only ever got offered rice with mine.

 

[Rorschach]

If we ate panda and chips, they wouldn't be endangered.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I did read a while ago that Mozambique was to have no forests left in eight years due to Chinese logging. There are, however, many unforeseens when conservation comes into play. There was a story in a Mensa magazine many years ago about a plan in India ...

The powers that were in one state decided that something had to be done about the air pollution, so decided to invest in methane digesters. These were to be powered by cow pats which the villagers were to be discouraged from burning for cooking fuel, thus adding to the pollution. These pats were personally owned and marked with hand prints. This worked for a short while until the gas works decided they had to charge for the gas to cover costs, at which point the villagers decided to charge for the cow pats. This then worked for a short while until the villagers realised that their cow pats had a monetary value, so sold them and saved their money by cutting down trees to cook on, while the mountains of unsold gas built up until the scheme collapsed.

A little off tack, but just shows that nothing is foolproof.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Woody - A few years ago when I still imagined I might have space to do it I thought seriously about getting some seed from NZ hardwoods (my sister lives there) as the weather conditions are pretty much the same (Cornwall).

 

[whiskywill]

...or eating panda and chips!.

Not tried that but I have had pie anda chips from my local Italian chippy.

 

[whiskywill]

Woody - A few years ago when I still imagined I might have space to do it I thought seriously about getting some seed from NZ hardwoods (my sister lives there) as the weather conditions are pretty much the same (Cornwall).

Try this site. http://www.whitecloudseeds.co.uk/index. ... t&catId=65 He used to be based in the U.K and sold ready germinated seeds. I have several 25ft trees in my garden grown from these seeds.

 

[AJB Temple]

Interesting. On the wood front I started stockpiling instrument making wood over 20 years ago (for my retirement when I will go back to instrument making!) and bought a lot of Ebony, Rosewood, Spruce, Maple and various mahogany species for this purpose, enough to see me out. Some of it I would have no chance of obtaining today. (No issues with the whitewoods really though prices of top quality sitka is very high these days).

Taylor make very good guitars with consistent tone and quality. I have bought three over the past 20 years. A lot of studio and stage musicians use Taylor and they seem to have acquired a large slice of market share that was formerly held my Martin & Co. Musicians do like nice woods!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

If I had the money I'd have fields of pohutukawas - they are so beautiful. My b.i.l. did the whole inside of their house with rimu. He asked his boss if he could come in to machine some wood on the weekend, his boss said fine so long as he got a ticket from security on the way in. He duly took his piece of wood and machined it - it was thirty feet long and five feet in diameter.

For Taylor fans (who haven't seen it) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I've just googled Metrosiderous ìMistralî and found a nursery about 3 miles away sells about a dozen cultivars. Pity I haven't space.

 

[custard]

Can we look forward to your new "medite" range Custard

Have you seen the price of Medite? My clients aren't made of money!

 

[custard]

It's like having a leopard fur coat, that would be seriously uncool...or eating panda and chips!

For some reason objects made from exotic, rare woods are still seen as fair game in a way that ivory or fur isn't.

In order to be eligible for a Guild Mark a piece cannot anymore contain any timber on the high risk CITES list.

This has had a pretty major impact on some of the most prestigious furniture being made today in the UK. Gone are all the high concept 1990's pieces like Carlton House Desks in Macassar Ebony, in is much more understated furniture in timbers like Sycamore, Douglas Fir, and Hazel.

 

[thetyreman]

all I'm saying is that I've been a professional musician and the better musicians out there know their stuff when it comes to quality craftsmanship and can easily tell the difference between two different guitars, in fact that's what got me interested in woodworking recently.

I have always loved acoustic guitars especially classical and flamenco and acoustic pianos in particular growing up playing both and admiring how they were made as well as being lucky enough to be good at playing them.