Those Were The Days

[custard]

For as long as I can remember I've had half a dozen big blocks of Mahogany in the workshop, they're all 3" thick and about 12" x 9". They get used to elevate benches, prop up items under the drill press, or for a thousand other little tasks.

I happened to glance at one this morning and recognised the logo of the late, lamented John Boddy timber yard, and I seemed to remember regularly getting in eight or nine foot boards of this stuff, prime Brazilian Mahogany, probably in the mid 1980's.

That price sticker gave me a shock, assuming this board was originally 8' long it means 1.5 cubic feet of flawless Brazilian Mahogany was then selling for £10.14!

Brazilian Mahogany is now prohibited from export, but clear boards of Honduran Mahogany (a decisive step down the quality ladder from Brazilian IMO) are today selling for about £140-150 per cubic foot. However, the Bank of England inflation calculator says something costing £10.14 in 1985 would sell today for £27.71 if it had risen in line with inflation.

It makes you stop and think.

I wonder how many timbers that are only just available today; like Wenge, Olive Wood, Bocote, or even English Walnut; will be virtually unobtainable in thirty years time? And how much will their inferior substitutes then cost, given that over the past thirty years prime timbers have outstripped inflation by five fold?

 

[YorkshireMartin]

It makes you wonder on many levels. I guess that was around the time they were clearing rainforest so I bet supply was enormous.

 

[JohnPW]

Might it be those were NOT the days?

I suppose when the colonialists saw the massive, almost unlimited amount of untouched forests, they couldn't cut them down fast enough.

Perhaps exotic woods were not valued highly enough in the past.

 

[custard]

If timber is grown sustainably and harvested responsibly then everyone wins, from local growers through to end user furniture makers. And there are signs this is happening. A couple of years ago I got some of the first Indonesian plantation grown Cuban Mahogany to be commercially available in the UK, very nice it is too. I understand there are now commercial Cuban Mahogany plantations in Haiti that should produce even better timber, only another 100 years to wait.

 

[wallace]

So if you had had the insight to stock pile some it would of been better than an ISA

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I have some mahogany my mother bought in 1975, it was an offer by a local builder's merchant at £1 per board foot. I used some this week - it's good ... but not that good.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Might it be those were NOT the days?

I suppose when the colonialists saw the massive, almost unlimited amount of untouched forests, they couldn't cut them down fast enough.

Perhaps exotic woods were not valued highly enough in the past.

Yes. But I doubt there were many colonialists around in the 1980s.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

Might it be those were NOT the days?

I suppose when the colonialists saw the massive, almost unlimited amount of untouched forests, they couldn't cut them down fast enough.

Perhaps exotic woods were not valued highly enough in the past.

Lets not go too eco-warrior on custard. I think he was referring to the price of quality timer and nothing more. He's one of the most experienced posters on the forum so it might be worth giving him the benefit of the doubt. The Brazilians themselves were responsible for the destruction of the rain forest over the past umpteen years, it's their forest, so I guess nobody had the right to stop them. It's a shame though, I'd agree that exotics were not highly enough valued, but nor was Brazil really on the map for most people and like most things, it only becomes a "cause" when it's going the way of the dodo.

Times change. I'd like to think that any new timber planted now will remain untouched, but sadly the world demand might mean we're all sitting on MDF made out of spruce in years to come.

 

[MatthewRedStars]

If timber is grown sustainably and harvested responsibly then everyone wins, from local growers through to end user furniture makers. And there are signs this is happening. A couple of years ago I got some of the first Indonesian plantation grown Cuban Mahogany to be commercially available in the UK, very nice it is too. I understand there are now commercial Cuban Mahogany plantations in Haiti that should produce even better timber, only another 100 years to wait.

That's really interesting! Would be good to know the economics of it.... whether investors expect a return cos 100 years is a long time!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I remember reading somewhere long ago that 90% of Brazilian timber felled was burned, and of the other 10% 90% was used by the Japanese. (probably skewed towards the Chinese, now.) Of the remaining 1% of the original figure, 1% ended up in this Country. This was a long time ago, and I don't know the veracity of it.
If it is anything like true, it makes a little bit of a mockery of people getting holier than thou over using it (while happily eating the beefburgers made from meat from the cattle that the forest was cut down to provide grazing for) - it's akin to the EU saving the planet by limiting the power of vacuum cleaners when the Chinese that build half of them are opening a new coal fired power station every n days.
I suspect that there are now many more Countries whose forestry is being devastated quicker than than Brazil's, but we don't hear much of them. I read that Mozambique is though on current levels of deforestation (by the Chinese) to become treeless in eight years.

 

[rafezetter]

If timber is grown sustainably and harvested responsibly then everyone wins, from local growers through to end user furniture makers. And there are signs this is happening. A couple of years ago I got some of the first Indonesian plantation grown Cuban Mahogany to be commercially available in the UK, very nice it is too. I understand there are now commercial Cuban Mahogany plantations in Haiti that should produce even better timber, only another 100 years to wait.

That's really interesting! Would be good to know the economics of it.... whether investors expect a return cos 100 years is a long time!

I know a guy who said once he had invested in some trees not long after his daughter was born; I assume to be harvested for her benefit at some point in the future - seems like quite a good investment to me as a great many things will revert back to wood once oil becomes more expensive to get and process.

 

[custard]

If timber is grown sustainably and harvested responsibly then everyone wins, from local growers through to end user furniture makers. And there are signs this is happening. A couple of years ago I got some of the first Indonesian plantation grown Cuban Mahogany to be commercially available in the UK, very nice it is too. I understand there are now commercial Cuban Mahogany plantations in Haiti that should produce even better timber, only another 100 years to wait.

That's really interesting! Would be good to know the economics of it.... whether investors expect a return cos 100 years is a long time!

Good question. Actually the return horizon for most hardwoods is closer to 200 years. Given that a "generation" is normally measured as 30 years that's about seven generations, so a farmer planting hardwood saplings today is doing something that will involve maintenance costs for his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great great grandchildren, great great great grandchildren, and his great great great great grandchildren; but will then only finally yield a return for his great great great great great grandchildren!

(Yes, I know, you could grow "coppice with standards" for an interim return, but for large parts of the world, and indeed large parts of the UK, that's impractical)

The only way that's ever going to happen is with sustained government intervention, delivering incentives and tax breaks to keep the hardwood show on the road across two centuries. It can and does happen, countries as varied as Indonesia and France have pulled it off, but the UK lags far behind, which is evidenced by our "hardwood balance of trade" figures,

The video that someone posted recently about an industrial scale guitar maker deciding to use lower grade Ebony was interesting. Personally I felt the owner's actions were laudable and he's to be applauded, but equally it could all backfire badly. He might for example discover that his customers desert him in droves when they stand in a guitar shop and say, "hmm, I prefer this guitar with its jet black Ebony rather than that guitar with its streaky, paler Ebony". In other words he might get caught out by the well documented phenomena of "the tragedy of the commons", it's precisely the same economic mechanism that leads to the depletion of fish stocks through over fishing.

CITES is also far from a perfect solution, it prohibits certain timbers being traded across national borders, but it does virtually nothing to encourage the replanting and conservation of these species. Vast quantities of CITES listed rain forest trees are felled every day, as jungle is converted into palm tree plantations, roads, or grazing land. I used to have a job that regularly took me to Brazil; out in Manaus in the Amazon I've seen freshly felled Kingwood and Rosewoods used for low grade construction timber or fence posts!

I hope there is a solution to the problem of disappearing timbers, but it's likely to be hideously complicated and require many more false starts before we finally get there.

 

[MIGNAL]

Talking of Ebony. I've had many examples of the jet black stuff and the streaky. The jet black stuff can be relatively easy to plane or it can be a nightmare, dependent on what the grain is doing. I have an example in the workshop that is atrocious in this respect but it's absolutely jet black. At least with the streaky stuff it's easy to tell what the grain is doing by a quick visual glance. It's only considered lower grade because of it's colour. Stick it on a guitar and a year later you'd be hard pressed to tell if it was streaky because the natural finger oils and accumulated dirt tends to even out the colour. I've all but stopped using the stuff because I've become increasingly sensitised to the dust. Instead I buy bog Oak from Timberline and I fill the open grain. Virtually impossible to differentiate it from Ebony from a distance of a few feet and I suspect that 90%+ of players wouldn't be able to tell the difference from a distance of a few inches. It's actually a bit more expensive than jet black ebony but not by much.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

"The video that someone posted recently about an industrial scale guitar maker deciding to use lower grade Ebony was interesting. Personally I felt the owner's actions were laudable and he's to be applauded, but equally it could all backfire badly. He might for example discover that his customers desert him in droves when they stand in a guitar shop and say, "hmm, I prefer this guitar with its jet black Ebony rather than that guitar with its streaky, paler Ebony". - Custard

I don't doubt there is an accompanying moral blackmail of the customer campaign. They'd be daft if there weren't.

 

[Lons]

I used to visit and buy from John Boddy on a regular basis as I often passed by on the A1. They had a great self selection warehouse, big enough to get lost in. I still have a substantial stock of various hardwoods which I know are now worth a small fortune and many which can't easily be found now. Daren't tell my missus or she'll sell the lot and go on holiday. :shock: maybe I need to do an inventory in case I pop me clogs!

30 years ago I got a couple of car loads of mahogany ends from the Riley snooker factory, all 3 to 4" thick. up to 9" wide and 1 to 3 foot long. Cost me a fiver a load and I picked my own from a huge pile of offcuts. Some hard maple as well though don't know what that was used for.
20 years ago I salvaged 2 trailer loads of 30mm thick ex science lab benches from a local school but most was just broken up into skips and dumped. :roll:

We're still guilty in the Uk of massive waste of good quality hardwood which is stripped out of banks, building societies and shops and just dumped as it's not cost effective for the contractors to salvage and these establishments are refurbished regularly, I've had some beautiful ash from one of those.

Bob

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Bob, maple makes wonderful cues as it takes threads beautifully. I've a cue I paid £60 for in 1981 that is birdseye maple for the butt and perfect straight grained maple for the fore end. Most cues have a threaded wooden insert - the insert is screwed into the butt then glued into the fore end, which is why the grain always lines up in the finished cue. Often woods are used that don't take threads easily, so this has to be done. I can't think where it is atm or I'd post a pic. - it's a thing of extreme beauty to wood lovers. I couldn't really afford it at the time, so it took me a few weeks hustling at pool to pay for it.

 

[Jacob]

I just took away a demolished "timber" conservatory. About 20 years old, DG units all failed, plastic roof failed, rot setting in, the whole thing ugly and "stained" brown (looks more like painted with dog sh*t).
Some of the bigger pieces are recyclable so I've started tidying them up - removing the draught seals, ali sections etc.
I've put a few bits through the band saw and you immediately get that lovely scent of tropical hardwood and see a beautiful timber being revealed - don't know what it is - plain and pinky brown.
My point is; what a waste of wood! Probably clear felled tropical forest, to landfill in only 20 years.

Ditto some mdf book cases I took away. Not recyclable so for firewood only. Similar time span, similar waste, very fast turnover.

But I've got some ordinary book cases made of pine which are at least 100 years old and still going strong. I've recycled various timbers mostly pine, even older - giving them another 100 years of life (perhaps!) - more than 200 in total.

So how do we prevent the tragic waste of materials and encourage re-cycling?

One answer is to only make expensive stuff which will last and be too good to throw away - musical instruments a good one!

 

[MIGNAL]

Having said that there's an awful lot of complete BS stated when it comes to musical instruments. Back and Side wood being one. There are perfectly good hardwoods available in this country that sound as good as any tropical. It's trying to reverse the years of 'indoctrination' that is proving to be extremely difficult. Once folk get it into their heads that wood x is unbeatable it's very hard to persuade them otherwise. Aesthetics is another matter.

 

[custard]

Here's some interesting woody stuff if timbers are your thing.

All three of these boards are Cuban Mahogany, which for my money is the best furniture maker's timber there's ever been. Mahogany furniture is currently about as fashionable as a perm and virtually unsaleable, but if I could only use a single timber for making furniture and could choose any timber, then it would have to be Cuban Mahogany. It's super stable and once you've dimensioned a board it stays completely true, it takes a wonderfully crisp finish for precise jointing, it's plenty strong enough to be worked into fine sections for chairs and other load supporting components, plus it's incredibly kind on your tools. When you're at the bench there's simply nothing better.

The background wide board was salvaged from an 18th century antique. That's a story in itself, the utter collapse in antique furniture prices over the past fifteen years has opened up a completely new supply of timber. There's almost no damaged antique furniture that can be restored profitably at today's prices, and the bigger pieces of damaged antique furniture that don't fit comfortably into modern homes will yield timber at well below timber yard prices. That's how Alan Peters got his super stable Mahogany drawer sides and that's how I get mine.

The top board is genuine Cuban Mahogany, but plantation grown in Indonesia from cuttings planted a hundred years ago or more. It's just starting to flow into the market and it's excellent quality. Ignore the rubbish phone photo, I can vouch that this is the real deal, although these first deliveries are really just plantation thinnings, and the big wide boards won't be along for another century or more. I've heard there's also Cuban Mahogany being plantation grown in Haiti, I won't be around to see it but that'll be a real treat.

The bottom board is really interesting. In 1908 a ship load of Cuban Mahogany from Jamaica (Cuban Mahogany grew right across the West Indies) was off-loaded at London Docks. A few years later the warehouse staff were sent off to fight in World War One and this delivery was forgotten and buried at the back of the warehouse; covered in dust it probably looked like a load of worthless scaffold boards. But when docklands was being redeveloped in the 80's and 90's someone found the original bills of lading tucked between the boards. It was auctioned off with great excitement, the only genuine, fresh Cuban Mahogany to be sold in over seventy years. I was lucky enough to snag some boards and wonderful stuff it is too.

There's just the small problem that the market has turned its back pretty decisively against Mahogany furniture. Nothing to do with conservation and everything to do with fashion, it's now usually regarded as old fashioned Victorian rubbish and I don't think I've ever had a client request furniture made in Mahogany. It's a shame because it's an absolute delight to use, but if that order ever comes I'll be ready!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

When I was 14 or 15 (better part of 50 years ago) my mother used to go to a lot of auctions, and if she saw a Victorian mahogany dining table she would buy it for me so long as it wasn't more than 10/- (50p, for our younger readers). I used to break them, keep what I wanted and sell the rest to my friends, which covered the sale price.