Can you identify this wood please?

[Phil Pascoe]

Unintended consequences. If none of these timbers have any value, there'll be no reason not to clear the land for cattle grazing and palm oil.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Unintended consequences. If none of these timbers have any value, there'll be no reason not to clear the land for cattle grazing and palm oil.

Sadly, the pattern in places like Malaysia seems to be to strip out the trees with any economic value and then to set fire to the rest before planting palm oil etc. I think it's easy to find places where the locals burn lovely old timbers for cooking fuel - to be fair, I burn bits of 200-year-old oak trees to keep warm!

I think that the problem with Accoya is that the pickling process only seems to work effectively with specific species of fast-growing pine from plantation grown stocks (in New Zealand?) which are now depleted. They either need to tweak the process so it could work properly for things like spruce etc., or wait another X years for the plantations to yield more timber. I think that - given it takes minutes (with the technology available) to cut down, and slice up, a tree and many years for one to grow back to replace it - we should be planting a lot more trees than we do!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Afaik radiata is used for accoya. NZ has been a major exporter of timber for decades and so far as I could see when there they have their replanting etc. quite well sorted out. They have about one and a half million hectares of radiata.
Apparently the major use for sheesham (another dalbergia) in india is burning it. And before anyone says quite rightly, I quite like some sheesham furniture - there's a lot of craap, but some very nice stuff.

 

[woodbloke66]

Your photo is probably African Blackwood, but it's a long way from being a certainty.

Yep, I'd go with African Blackwood as well - Rob

 

[MusicMan]

I'm familiar with both blackwood and cocobolo since I have clarinets made of them, though it is true that they can vary quite a bit. Blackwood's binary name is indeed Dalbergia Melanoxylon. It's also known as grenadilla, and in Africa as Mpingo, and there is a big preservation/sustainability effort because of its use in woodwind instruments. It is really the best choice because of its density and stability. Cocobolo is not quite so stable but good enough. The only European hardwoods that are suitable are box and maple but it's very hard to find good enough boxwood now, and maple is a bit porous for the smaller instruments; it's mainly used for bassoons.

I carry certificates of manufacture when I go abroad with the instruments because since I bought them they became subject to CITES.

My guess from the pic would be grenadilla (blackwood) but as Custard says the dalbergia species are hard to distinguish without microscopic analysis.

 

[OscarG]

That's an interesting question Suffolkboy.

I've always had a soft spot for Rosewood and for thirty years or more I've been buying exceptional boards whenever I came across them. But I noticed that my clients are increasingly turning against tropical timbers, in particular the commercial clients (and they're the ones every maker really wants) are clear they won't tolerate the risk of an environmental embarrassment and stipulate temperate zone, sustainably sourced, FSC/PEFC, full chain of custody, etc.

Another factor that's driving the business is that Guild Marks now stipulate no CITES timber, and given that CITES is changing quickly and you can easily spend two or three years planning then building a Guild Mark submission, most makers have abandoned not only CITES timbers, but also woods that might become CITES listed in the near future, like say Wenge.

There was a case not long ago when a guy inherited a barn full of Macassar Ebony and offered it for sale in one lot at an astronomical price. The surprising thing is there were no takers. He dropped the price and broke it into smaller lots, still no takers. It was clear his gold mine wasn't quite so golden after all. That made a lot of people re-think their views on how much certain timbers are really worth.

And when Brexit was confirmed I realised that I either had to use my Rosewood or CITES meant it would be confined for evermore to the UK. So I sold almost all of it to a luthier wholesaler on the continent.

I kept a few absolutely prize boards, thinking I might make something really special for my children. But even there I'm hesitating. Imagine if your father or grandfather had made you something out of ivory or polar bear skin, instead of being a treasured heirloom it might now be a burden and an embarrassment. Then there's the fact that their taste and my taste will probably diverge, especially with changing fashions. So do I want to condemn them to lug some oppressive white elephant piece of furniture with them from house to house?

I'm sure I will make them something special, but it'll more likely be something smaller and made from a more politically correct timber.

I have some beautiful Macassar Ebony guitar fretboard blanks (one day I'll use them). I bought them 2 years ago, had no idea they were protected though. :shock:

Thanks very much for your very detailed reply earlier. Much appreciated.