Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

That was interesting. No mention of RIC and farm-grown woods, though. The article also concentrates on acoustic, spruce top instruments.

It also doesn't mention the fact that a new company/technology is now said to be able to harvest underwater forests (ones created by 20th Century dam projects.) Their ability to do so, rapidly and in quantity, will come online soon, I believe.

According to a story I read, many thousands of square miles of perfectly good woods will soon be harvested, including Brazilian rosewood. It's all been dead for ages, but it's perfectly good, old growth wood. So I can't imagine it will be subject to things like import quotas and the like. We shall see.

If Rick runs out of hard maple, I'll cut the two down in my front yard! I also have three walnut trees in the back yard that are over 3 feet in diameter. That should make a couple walnut peghead wings!

Walnut for pegheads I'd not be as worried about, as walnut grows reasonably fast to about 15-20 feet tall; it's after that that the growth becomes slower, gaining more girth versus height.

Yes, and though it's usually for electrics there's no mention of Alder or Ash. Ash grows like weeds.

There are ash trees on my brother's farm that are over 5-6 feet in diameter.
We use it for firewood!

Rics will soon be made out of gum trees.

Something to chew on, for sure, Sean...

I buy a fair amount of farm-grown walnut from trees only about 24" in diameter (judging from the plank sizes in the slab-cut wood). It has the nice walnut coloration and grain, but some of it is as light as a feather...

Recently I purchased a slab of 100-year-old walnut that had been in a barn back East for most of that time. It's about 2" thick, 40" long and a foot wide. It must weigh 40-50 pounds (guesstimated). Doesn't even feel as if it would float.

The difference between this stuff and the new stuff is so great, that they feel like two different species. Come to think of it, they could be. Think of old trees, just allowed to grow and flourish, and new trees, given the bum's rush for the sake of production quotas.

I bought a lot of ash (that's ASH) back in the '70s when I was building my woodies. The same grade of ash in the same shipment, but from different trees, would have weight per board foot all over the place. Some was as hard as a rock and dense as oak; other planks felt and looked like balsa, and were as light as a feather. My guess is that the mill was mixing old and new growth in my order.

I have a Giannini classical guitar made in Brasil in the early '70s that George sold me for $20.00. Genuine Brasilian rosewood back and sides; very thin. Amazing tone for a smallish (14 1/2") sound box. The rosewood sides and back are very thin and dense; almost feel like Formica.

As I've mentioned before, you can still buy Brasilian rosewood in nearly any madeirera (lumberyard) in Brasil; I'm sure a good deal of it is poached--law enforcement there is lax and spotty at best--but you'll have a hard time getting it out of the country.

Woods like pine and other softwoods are impossible to find in the tropical North; it's all hardwood, due to a huge problem with termites eating everything cellusosic in sight. My studio has structural members which are made of a hardwood that the locals call ipé, pronounced eee-PAY, which doesn't float, weighs a lot, and yet the fishermen build boats from it.

Those suckers will probably last a couple of centuries.

The export of Brazilian Rosewood was never banned by Brazil for environmental reasons exactly; the government there only stopped export of raw lumber. They wanted the income and taxes of having secondary operations performed in Brazil and there was a large business in the exportation of Brazilian Rosewood assemblies such as fingerboards, precut tops and backs, bridges, not to mention the dimensional lumber trade for furniture and the like. Part of the impetus for the CITES treaty that did stop the import and export from ALL countries (except for old material with a permit) was the inaction of Brazil to protect the cutting of the timber.

As a side note, it's interesting to note how many great guitar woods are from the Dalbergia family.

We've preferred to use farm grown woods for decades not only for environmental reasons, frankly speaking, but also due to the availability of consistent supplies and quality.

Ipê aka Brazilan Walnut or Tabebuia, has a pretty interesting story as well.

"Rics will soon be made out of gum trees."

Hopefully not the necks!

As they used to say on Laugh-In, "veeeery interesting."

I had a 1974 Giannini six string that was like a south of the border ripoff a Martin, looked, played and sounded great. But the neck was the thickest thing (like a classical neck attached to a dreadnought body.) One day, one of the tuners broke.

They appeared to be made by the manufacturer, or no longer made by anyone. I took it to be repaired and they had to plane a quarter inch or so off of the back of the headstock to get any kind of available replacement tuners to fit onto it.

It had great wood as well. I played it for decades and gave it to a girlfriend one day. Oh well, another guitar gone.

Those Tabebuia tress sure are pretty.

John Hall, did Rickenbacker ever use Brazilian rosewood on any guitars?

Never mind the rosewood...

Jared and his dream bass - Will they ever become friends?