Official Luthiers Forum!

For those that can get RT News, they are running the doc "Musicwood" today. Looks like it's on again at 9:30am CST. Runs several times today...

http://rt.com/shows/documentary/172588- ... s-culture/

Thanks for the heads up Haans

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Well, I hope some managed to catch it. I did, and it looked to me like 3 white guys trying to ensure their Sitka supply, while making an advertising campaign showing how "concerned" they were. Kinda like Exxon or BP telling us how "Green" they are...
Loved the indian woman who said "White man speak with forked tongue".

Watched it, agreed about the guys wanting the ensure their supply, but really felt the natives were raping their own resources without any thought to sustainability.
I just kept feeling that tree ceremony was so hypocritical. Seemed to me some the natives have picked up the said western habit.
Maybe I missed something, but couldn't help but notice at the end, profits something like 2.x million to shareholders and 7.x million to directors/employees, and boy were they keen to get more of their land/trees.
Does anyone think the bulk of that's going to tonewood, or to lumber and pulp?
I have serious doubts myself, how depressing.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Bob Taylor's comment about the demise of the two piece top was interesting and touches on something I've been saying for the past several years. While people have been concerned with the availability of tropical hardwoods for backs and sides the most important part of the guitar, the soundboard, has been largely ignored. We seem to think the old growth forests of the great north west are limitless. 2 X 4 tops here we come!

I am glad some of you got to see this. I have been following this project for a while, I think my notes indicate a call to Greenpeace on this in 2006 or 2008. I have the "movie" on DVD and am working with an aboriginal community on value added wood products, specifically musical instrument products from spruce and cedar. There is a whole lot to this story but the salient point to it is as Clay has stated, you can grow a hardwood tree for backs and sides in 60 to 100 years, but for quality top wood you are looking at a minimum of 300 to 600 years. We need to find a way to manage these last available stands so that the high grade trees are selectively harvested and managed over time. But it is about money and these communities that own the rights to these trees want the money now. So the trick is finding a way to get the forests managed for sustainability (environmentally) will ensuring that the communities are also sustainable (economically). No easy feat!

Shane

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Canada

The average shareholder (20,000 members) of Sealaska corp. gets a $245 dividend while the 48 executives/boardmembers get an average $151,000 dividend. The average native gets a yearly pittance and lives in squalor while the select few reap most of the wealth from sales of clear cutting their land. I hope Congress doesn't give them the rights to the last 80,000 acres - they are, most likely going to clear cut that also. I hope this gets resolved equitably for everyone, but most likely, no one wins. Most likely the cost of good Sitka topwood will go up while the average quality will drop soon.

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John Lewis
Wannabe builder owned by 2 crazy dachshunds

Colin, I would guess that it's like any group of people. Some are there to protect the heritage, some to make a buck off it. Tribes are no different.
Yes, I thought the tree ceremony was a little off, especially with the three rich guys standing around looking dumb, but "reverent", not to mention the way the tree was felled. I noticed it also took down a smaller tree.
Yes, I thought Taylor's comments about quality of tops was VG, especially since I go out of my way to use A grade tops. Perfect grain and no run out is just dang stupid, and it is those companies that made AAAAAAA grade tops a requirement. I wonder just how much Sitka the major companies go through each year and what else the wood is used for...
I am sure, just as Sealaska suits make all the $$$, so do the guitar mfgr suits. From what I gathered from the short version of the doc, Greenpeace gave up on coming to any terms. There was a wonderful doc on that forest back a few months ago about the cutting and some flashy paper or magazine that asked a local photographer to send some nice photos of the forest. He sent them photos of the clear cutting and devastation.
I bought a lot of my red spruce from Ted Davis, who used to go and try to find downed trees.

I worked on a very stylish, high end, craftsman style remodel a few years ago and all the windows were Sitka. Beautiful, straight, strong and stunningly engineered. Also very expensive. The bay window was $9000 and the lowest priced double hung was nearly $2k. I hope some of that dough got to the peeps that should get it. Apparently a lot of Sitka goes to high end doors and windows. Strong and stable big trees have always been in high demand. T