Official Luthiers Forum!

Another big Storm headed our way, as is normal for this time of the year in SE Alaska as strom after storm comes in from the Gulf of Alaska. This one though is the remnants of Hurricane Ohu, and i joining hands with another system here. So this one is a doozy and we can expect winds 50-60 sustained and gusts to 80+mph, Heaavy rain and therefore landslaides probable. But guess what? 150+' tall sitka spruce trees get topplled in storms like this. So a hunting I must go this weekend, for what few are left and within areas that are not protected by regulation. Like within 200 foot buffers of fish creeks[Nearly EVERY creek under 800' elevation in SE Alaska].

That brings me to my most important question.. Is salvage sourcing important to you? The reason I ask is because, for quite some time, I have paid attention to comments made by luthiers and the populace in general about "sustainability", Going "Green", etc. I see a lot of clabber about "save the trees", "stop the clearcut logging", etc. And it seems that a good 80% of my collueges in Lutherie share that opinion. FYI, You will never hear me badmouth Loggers.and the timber industry.. just so you know.

Speaking specifically about species of Sitka Spruce and Wesern red Cedar from the Pacific Northwwest,. No less 90%, but likely more, of all tonewood products sold by sounddboard producers and tonewood vendors/lutherie supply stores use clearcut sourced, industrial produced soundboard products.

So I ask because, We answered the call and have set ourselves up to be the Premier Supplier and producer of 100% Salvage sourced Old Growth of Sitka and Cedars native to SE Alaska, And only these species. We have sourced, purchased, and inventoried a substancial volume[Near 500,000 bdft] gross volume large diameter log. All of it specific to tonewood products. And we have setup a New custom shop with 2 generations of Family working as full time sounboard producers. Full time for the past 20 years. This whole project and investment has been extreme in planning , work, and cost. I look forward to your comments and questions as this thread begins.
I need to make a video tour of the operation and invite you all for a visit.

This pic was taken Last Thursday, right after hanging the new Sign.

I am very much a small-time hobbyist who doesn't make large tonewood purchases. Because of that, my answer here won't carry much weight with respect to the answers you are looking for. In the interest of the discussion in general, I will weigh in.

I prefer wood sources that are as "ecofriendly" as possible over other sources when possible. That means a lot of different things for different people. For me, I always am on the lookout for woods that are going to go to waste but can be used for my purposes. I try to give preference to local timbers; that is not to say I shun exotics but I like to use local woods when I can. I'm fortunate enough to have an operation in my city that rescues the logs from trees that have to be removed and processes lumber instead of having them turned into mulch and landfill. I try to get most of my hardwood from them or from re purposing someone scrap and fall off from around town. Basically try to use the "reuse" philosophy when I can. The added benefits of the local approach is that the wood wasn't shipped/trucked all over the globe on my behalf.

Top wood:
Around here, it is a whole lot trickier to get usable topwood with this methodology. I have done it, it is not impossible, but it is rare. It is much nicer to have wood that was cut with topwoods in mind. My little stash of tops is mostly tops cut from a supplier who harvests tonewood logs in a sustainable way. Pick a tree, get a permit, turn it into tonewood. . . A big part of the appeal was knowing that it wasn't coming from a clear cut situation. Another large factor was the reputation of the supplier for knowing how to cut tops. Knowing you are salvaging logs and have long experience producing tonewood puts you as a vendor I will try to do business with when it comes time to order sitka.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I think most people would buy sustainable wood provided the quality was equal or better and the cost similar.much like free range or fair trade food. It's something I would be interested in but shipping a few tops over to the UK doesn't seem to be a winner. Tried talking to a few of the European luthier suppliers?

I'm just beginning this guitar building process, and am probably not your target customer, but I will make it a point to buy what I do need from you. I applaud your dedication to salvage sourcing.

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Brad Hall
Mystic Dawg Guitars

Even though 90% of the 60 plus guitars I have built are from salvaged wood I can't claim that it is actually important to me. Sustainability is very important to me and in fact I have purchased many mahogany, cocobolo, and more tree's for that very purpose and of course as an investment. Lets face it without sustainability then there is no future. Salvage means a little bit different to me however, when I salvage wood it's typically from old unused floor boards, barn siding, or anything unwanted and available.

But I do like the idea of salvaged wood and my customers have also been very keen on it. I think it helps find a niche in this business that is already difficult to get into.

Good luck batten down the hatches and keep your fingers crossed. We just missed a big one here in Virginia.

Salvage is always best. Nature helping our cause. Next is select logging providing you're not targeting the oldest, tallest tree on the planet.

I wish you guys were a few miles South. Darn Canada - US exchange rate is cramping my wood hoarding style.

Very glad to see a supplier offering salvaged wood sourcing!

Are you using an independent certification system such as FSC?

Almost all of the wood I processed for the 11 years I was at it was from selective harvest trees. These were live and dominant trees but were nearing their end of life as was noted by the appearance of conks on the side of many of the trees. Clear cutting in BC has seen many changes now. The blocks are much smaller with many "leave strips" left. It is tricky business. Selective logging in a closed canopy forest at commercial levels is very dangerous for the fallers and the people yarding the wood out. Improperly designed small selective block logging can lead to blow down as the wind firm edge of the forest is lost. None of the the methods are great but non are horrible either if we actually treat the resource as renewable. The part that really bothers me is when beautiful, clear, straight spruce logs are harvested for export and are not available to the local market as the volume is needed to fill a container or a ship. Then these trees are often processed into window parts and such where other less valuable wood fibre could be used.

Shane

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Canada

"these trees are often processed into window parts and such where other less valuable wood fibre could be used."

Window parts need to be made from high quality clear timber also. 2X4's on the other hand....
Exporting on container ships raw logs is the part I find unfortunate. Instead of the value added to the local economy by processing the wood into finished products before export, a few get rich and the local population struggles.

" Is salvage sourcing important to you?"
Salvaging timber is a good thing. Billeting blowdowns and carrying them out is a nice low impact way to harvest a resource that would otherwise go to waste. That you also make a high quality product from it is a plus. Selective logging is also not a bad way to go for a renewable resource. The end product is what is most important to me, but knowing that the supplier isn't "raping the resource" to procure it makes me want to do business with them.

Personally - I like stuff like this... There's a giant amount of wood out there that could make great guitars... and I like to make guitars out of that wood...

Sound wise - it's great.. A lot of the salvaged spruce I ended up with has a lower density than the "New" cut stuff.... That's quite nice in my mind...

It tends to be less expensive because it doesn't have the same sort of "Prestige"... People hear "Salvaged" and they think "You are trying to make something out of trash"

On the down side -it doesn't "Grade" visually as high because it may be ugly - and thus the market impugns that it cannot be good for guitars... or that the guitars it would make would somehow be "Lower quality" and poor sounding or more prone to failure.... That's just not the case...

Salvaged wood can be pretty "Cosmetically challenged" - that tends to down grade a lot of it... Some of the stuff I have is quite wide grained, quite uneven grained, lots of color and color streaking, compression wood, thick latewood lines, and lots of wiggles... The issue with "Salvage" is that you end up with what you find - not what you plan to choose.. That can potentially mean that you may end up cutting (And having to figure out what to do with) a lot of "Low grade" wood because it's what you find.. You may not be able to scout and core sample many standing trees and cherry pick just the very best one...

From the perspective of the wood cutter... It takes the same work and time (or maybe more) to process low grade wood as high grade wood.... Salvage wood may well take *more* hours to process because you have to cut out the unsalvagable parts to get to the usable parts... All that means less dollars per hour to the tonewood processor...

Most likely - the down sides are the reason you just don't see much effort going into salvaged wood, and the stuff you do see tends to be happening in amateur or small one man shop sort of places where they go after one specific "Boutique" market such as Red spruce or perhaps as a temporary backup plan for when their normal "Wood acquisition" channels are shut down for whatever reason...... AKA - selling something is better than selling nothing... but you have to do 10x more work selling $8.00 tops compared to $80 tops to make the same daily wage...

I for one am glad to see it...

Thanks

Nearly all the red spruce I bought was from Ted Davis (who?), and I believe he used to get one down tree each year. John Arnold would know for sure.
Most all the wood I have is pretty old, and really don't remember where I got it. Some of it I suppose was clear cut, but as far as clear cutting, small builders are not the culprits here. Compared to the wood cut for 2X4's, flooring and such, we should not be made to feel guilty for having a few tops, backs and sides that are not salvage. Salvage is good though...

We get all our wood from suppliers that claim responsible environmental stewardship in their practices. I certainly would not make a lumber purchase based solely on which vendor claims to be operating on the highest or higher ethical and moral grounds. The fact is my customers could not care less. As mentioned above I also have no guilt feeling using the finest woods available to make guitars and other musical instruments.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I'm glad you brought up FSC.. It doesn't mean what you think it means.
It is more a license and a pat on the back for a tree farm rather than conservation of old growth.
I cannot get FSC certification, because there is no "chain of title" from Nature to Government, for the dead and down timber we search for and locate, to purchase in our Micro-Sale timber program. The program itself, is strictly dead or down. If it's near dead, is standing but has 1 green limb, it's not dead and therefore not attainable. The program was setup here about 10-12 years ago, the result of The Collaborative Stewardship Program and meetings, where folks from commercial and sport Fishing, recreation, timber, USDA Forest Service,, conservation groups and subsistence interests all got together for a plan to support small business in the forest while meeting the many objectives. Also timber producers that get the FSC Cert. are managing a forest in most cases that are on a less than 100 yr rotation cycle. For hardwoods, that is not too much an issue, as most woods used for back and sides come from trees in the age bracket. But softwoods for soundboards will not be obtainable in that cycle. A 200 yr old tree is min for just a handful of dread/jumbo size 2 pc booksets. But a 200 yr old tree growing in an old growth habitat with natural crowding, would be marginally of size and tree farm type trees of this age will have a looser texture/growth ring than what most people desire today. There is no timber program more Eco-freindly for soundboard production then salvaging using what nature provides naturally.
I will address other issues of this process in another post.

Thank you for the comments everyone. I can address truckers comments with some FYI.
Timber fiber costs $$. there is stumpage cost and logging cost, transport cost and all other handling costs. Whether the log is salvaged or purchased from a log yard, there is not much difference, in the end result of cost. Because getting necessary equipment to extract 1 tree of salvage is quite a bit more expensive per mbf then setting up a tower and logging a whole unit. If Helicopter is used. same thing. There is mobe to and from, plus the little job.
Recovery is addressed.. Yes salvage does cost more to process. More labor and seldom can one use gang saws. And there is dealing with the waste as mentioned. I will post a series of pics on our ASW Facebook page as a large block of sitka from a float log is dissected. It's necessary to start cutting the block at 16" wide to pattern booksets recovered. And then there is this thing of quality... What does that even mean? I know what we do, but that doesn't make it right.
The pics I load here are of 1 block from another float log. Big oversize split wedge. It is "THE STUFF" the heart split face is about 4" thick. The quadrant it was split from was ring shook, with the exception of the upper right corner that shows the fiber have zero grain-slope VERY straight fiber wood. I drew pattern on each side of the block and took pic, nose on. Then each side. One side patterns clean to the non-existant sapwood edge, clean white color 3A or better grade by subjective industry standard of grade. and then 4 inches over, or 14" sapwood face., to the other side of the block. Same everything but color and recoverable pattern. Still a VG cut, stiff as glass, no run-out board, strong shiny medularies. But the color is not as uniform white. In fact, because of color, this set would put into the 1A sort. If the teredo damage wasn't there, I , the colorful area of the block would just be clipped by the widest area of a lower bout, and make a more sell-able and higher grade top set. Plus I wouldn't need to cut boards so wide and could produce other product out of material getting made into paint stir stick size.. These pic show 2 things. Production costs are much higher than green cut wood, and quality could probably get better defined.

Interesting. I enjoy reading about logging and what it takes to get tone wood to us. I was a forestry student at one time (before switching to engineering) so did learn a little. I'm all for selective logging and salvage logging - especially of large, old growth wood.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Quality does not need be compromised, by salvage. But defined Yes.
At retail level of sales, we are able to compete in price very well. It becomes quite a bit more difficult at wholesale After-all our max production with 2 full-time sawyers and 2 support crew, is about 300 gtr sets per day[plus other fall down products]. Compare that to a big producer of green timber like Pacific Rim that can produce 2000 sets a day with gang saws. I'm in no way bad mouthing anyone... just pointing out facts and differences.
I' m glad to say we do have wholesale customers that do quite well with our products and our prices.
I have made many wonderful friends that share a passion of conservation. Rich Hoover -Santa Cruz Gtrs and Tom Bedell of the Two Old Hippies Family of Instruments[Bedell, Breedlove, Weber instruments] are two of many. They, We and others have joined together to hopefully make a difference. Hope you will too. Tom flew to South Africa and spoke at the World Forestry Conference. http://bedellguitars.com/blog/tom-bedel ... try-issues
By the way, Check out the commercial Tom's Step son RA made of Alaska Specialty Woods posted at the Bedell seed To Song project wood certification page. Click on Alaska Specialty Woods and watch the video with me Brent Jr and Ryan. Really well done.
I hope more folks will make a decision and effort to do what little one person is able, to make a difference in the way high quality tonewood products are sourced for musical instruments.

I hope you will listen as Tom addresses the attendees of the World Forest Congress in Durban S. Africa last month. Hopefully a trend setter, and Most certainly a man of principle and conviction for conservation of our natural resource gifts. Something else you may not know about Tom. Hiss Dad Berkley Bedell was the founder of Berkley Fishing gear. When Berkley, ran and became a Senator for Iowa, Tom took over the company, and grew in into a multi-national company. He sold that Co. in 2009 and went into his real passion of guitars and music. Hats off, and I raise my glass of good beer to my friend and Customer... Tom Bedell
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l5OZPtQSRWs

We at ASW are not only a custom shop processing 100% salvage sourced old growth, but we can provide a story with all our products as well. Like us at facebook.

I believe Tom is still involved with fishing gear.


http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stock ... Id=4282438

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I saw a question earlier when I was up in th middle of the night breifly, after someone in Alabama decided to call Alaska Spcialty Woods at 4 am. You know, during normal biz hours. Anyway Bedell guitars are all built in Bend Oregon, as well as all the Wber Line and th high end Breedlove instruments.
Tom told me about this fishing stuff. It's a special sause fish bait attractant. I had forgotten.

Actually, according to Bloomberg he is Owner and CEO of this entire company -- no small fish in the business world, check out the branding, which includes Berkley!

http://purefishing.com/

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Too sweeten someones inventory of high grade bearclaw sitka. I posted a bundle of 17 sequentially cut boards of Bearclaw from a log float we pulled apart in 2000. A block/billet was found while moving from the old little shop, into the factory. I sliced it up about a month ago and just got to it while grading 2500 figured guitar sets.
Here is the link-1 bundle, first come first serve/ It was first posted on our Facebook page, as that is were all special things gt post first, But the link wasn't working, because I goofed. Fixed now though.
http://www.alaskawoods.com/products.php ... etail=true

I can say that I'm only a hobby builder. I consume so little wood that I hardly matter. But this eco-friendly approach matters to me. Brent has not asked for this endorsement of salvaged deadwood, nor is he expecting to see mine. That said, I have purchased from him twice. Quality of product was exceptionally good both times. Based on my experience, I can see no reason not to use salvaged woods.

Thank You Patrick. Yep, I am asking.. kinda doing a survey of sorts.
Of all the luthiers I have gotten to know, Most seem genuinely concerned of protection of the environment. So I ask a larger audience to chime in. I live in the middle of the last Temperate Old Growth Forest in the US. Trees that are over 500 yrs old. I have seen so much of it disappear in the 30 yrs that I have lived here. That is why I chose to go down this path, and work to be premier tonewood producer/supplier of ecologically sourced old growth timber products for acoustic instruments. we have the wood, the knowledge and experience, the facility and equipment.