Official Luthiers Forum!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

It's good to see that the Maple is actually being used for something. In BC the majority of Maple that grows in any cuts here is smashed up in the process of going after the marketable target wood, Fir, Cedar and Hemlock. At 80 - 100 years it's time to harvest. Big Leaf doesn't live much longer. As long as they're not taking them in the areas used by the public I see no crime. It is a crying shame to see Maple and Alder (one of my fave cabinet woods) smashed up in the bush and left behind. I think if the governing bodies had any scene they would allow people to apply for permits to harvest specific trees. Tonewood is likely the most value added use of a tree. Maple and Alder are probably the most sustainable and fastest growing tree on the North West Coast and the first tree that naturally comes up after an area has been logged or has had a fire. They are by no means in danger. In fact the way the "poachers" are taking those trees is the most environmentally way to log. Selectively. In a year or two, you might not know they had been there.

Well, the crime is that they didn't have the legal permission to harvest the wood from public lands. Like taking an elk without a hunting license and elk tag, it really doesn't matter the elk might die soon anyway, if they don't have a license and elk tag then they're poaching.

If I remember correctly you can cut down dead trees and harvest wood that has already fallen in the National Forest but you cannot cut down live tree's. At least that was the case here in Virginia. Of course this would all be for fuel wood too. The problem as I see it is that the National Forest belongs to all of us but here we have a few people who thinks that it belongs to them and they will simply take what they want and profit off of it. Not cool.

There are a lot of huge big leaf Maple trees on private land in Washington. There are people that will take cores and offer really good money for the the right tree. Going on public lands and taking them for free is theft. I am glad they busted these guys,

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

To cut in National forest you first get a permit from the forest ranger office then tell them where and what you intend to cut. When I was harvesting Engelmann spruce you had to identify the actual tree which had to be a leaner or exhibit some kind of damage.

We talk a lot about the paperwork and provenance requirements of the Lacey Act around here, at least in this case it is being applied to a real world problem. Perhaps demonstrating that Lacey has teeth will have an effect on the market for this type of poaching, then again, maybe not. This is what the Act is supposed to be about, hurting people who are illegally harvesting and knowingly buying illegally harvested resources. The pinch on the small time end user is unfortunate.

The sad thing here is (other than people poaching in a National Forest) is that it is associated with instrument making. There were a lot of assertions that this had an effect on the industry that was relatively small in the grand scheme of wood usage. We have Gibson in the news for bringing in exotic wood that was not harvested properly, now we have another guitar maker associated with wood poached form a National Forrest. It looks bad for the industry, and let's face it, the guitar doesn't need a bad reputation right now.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

Sorry for the double post.

It just occurred to me that the article makes no reference to the wood purchased by PRS and North American Wood Products. It says nothing about it being seized or frozen in any way. I wonder how deeply their records will be audited. They say they have no knowledge of the crime and it would be nice to believe them. It wold also be nice to see that, if they are innocent, the wood is not confiscated leaving it unused and the innocent companies left with a big bill and no inventory. Perhaps that is because it would be impossible to prove what wood in the warehouse was poached or perhaps the law is being applied only to the guilty which would be good news for us.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

There are some major differences between this case of poaching and the G*bson two cases of poaching.

First PRS is not being charged, the poachers are. Next it also sounds like there was a middleman here as well who is also not under any charges at present.

Another major difference at least to me is that in this case the poachers were as JF rightly said stealing from all Americans in so much as we the people ultimately own our national forests. In the case of G*bson other countries had their laws broken as well as the poaching also broke US laws in resepct to treaties.

I don't see PRS doing anything like this or even turning a blind eye and claiming ignorance.

And lastly the most glaring difference in this case from the G*bson case is Paul did not get busted and then write an oped in the WSJ claiming that he was being singled out because of his politics....

It does hurt the industry though and shines a light on just how careful even individual Luthiers need to be to avoid even unknowingly participating in something that is not legal.... Lots of BRW still on the market and it's highly likely that even with so-called paperwork it's not legal for sale or to purchase. Luthier beware....

I'm glad they caught the perps though and I am also glad that I never heard of the people who got caught. I'm also glad that this is not or never was a sponsor here which begs yet another point - we are fortunate with the OLF to have the fine sponsors that we do have!

The article also says that they profited to the tune of nearly a million bucks.... AND that the perps could get 10 years in prison - good! Don't drop that soap bar......

Yeah, I didn't mean to group this with the Gibson case beyond the point that two large guitar makers are in the news for illegally obtained wood.

Unless I am misunderstanding, the middle man is being charged and faces 10 years. That being the owner of the mill who purchased and processed the timber and made the $800k.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

I am just glad to see the Lacey act used to prosecute the scumbags who illegally log, instead of causing paperwork grief, and lost sales due to the paperwork grief, for everyone who imports or exports music instruments to the USA. This is good news.

I agree with Danny V that this wood could be utilized a lot more…
in BC like he says so much maple goes to waste,,, after 80 years its in decline generally… So much of this wood that will rot.. could be used and actually deter poaching, If there was a system in place for select mature tree harvest on an individual basis.. that wasn't too complicated ..
well who knows that might make guys like these thieves just get a real job… and fill wood orders with legally obtained wood,,, make use of maple that will die anyway,, and make sure there are tops for the industry and small users alike..
In state parks it should be off limits… obviously…
cheers cw

Down here folks are happy to have "trash" trees removed.
I got all the Chinaberry and Mesquite I could ever use.
Legally free is swell.

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Dan, I really like the way you arranged the grain to compliment the outline of that tele! Nice work.

I try to get as much of my wood from the urban log recycler here in town. Too bad it's not free like yours though.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

Thanks, Bryan.
There's an abundance of varied hard wood here. No Maple though.
Dan

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Ok guys I have a question. I haven't read the Cites treaty or whatever it's called. What happens if you own a few antique guitars with BRW fretboards and bridges?


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Hey Lonnie bro! My understanding is that the roll-out of the implementation of the enforcement of CITES is still a work in progress so-to-speak with folks working on and publishing how this will all work, or not...

I've heard of a musical instrument passport that can be obtained to ease cross border travel for existing instruments with now controlled, embargoed materials on them. I've also read somewhere some of the new regulations that speak to antiques and what qualifies age wise, etc.

The common theme seems to be though unless one's instrument qualifies for an exemption because of it's age, materials known to have been used by the manufacturer, etc. any commercial trade in the US is currently banned.

We've been interested in how this will work too since we encounter ivory on lots of older Martins and BRW on all manner of guitars.

Until we know more our MO has been absolutely no commercial trade which means we can't and won't make duplicate BRW or ivory parts for even vintage instruments until we have further guidance. I'm not interested in prison....

charliewood wrote:
"I agree with Danny V that this wood could be utilized a lot more…
in BC like he says so much maple goes to waste,,, after 80 years its in decline generally…"

The poachers are going after particularly highly figured wood, which is probably not very common. It's not the species that makes it valuable, it's the figure.

Hesh wrote:
"The common theme seems to be though unless one's instrument qualifies for an exemption because of it's age, materials known to have been used by the manufacturer, etc. any commercial trade in the US is currently banned."

That's not my understanding. Basically, with BRW, if you've got some sort of documentation that tracks the wood within the US before it went on the CITES list in June of '92, it's considered legal for trade within the country. This could be testimony of folks who saw it in your possession, letters, whatever. Obviously the quality of the documentation will be weighed on a case by case basis. If you can't show that it entered the country before then you'll need documentation that shows it was legally imported. If you want to export it then you'll probably need more formal evidence, such as sales slips that track it back, even if you got it well before the CITES listing. Basically, F&W came to see that it was unlikely that people would have a paper trail stretching back many years on something that didn't require it. We're unusual among woodworkers in buying stock and holding it for a long time, and since we're so far under the radar nobody thought of that when the laws were passed.

Thanks Al and I would take your understanding over mine any day. I've not been following this issue closely knowing as I do that when something changes we are likely to hear about it.

Regarding your understanding for those of us like me who have only ten years in the game with all of our purchases being no older than that AND with the total absence of any paperwork as far as what I have here my take has been "danger Will Robinson..." Nothing that I made or that I have qualifies under your definition as materials (or instruments) that are eligible for commercial trade. So I simply won't go there.

There goes my 401K from my stash.....

Related is what one of our guys in our shop did. He's a fantastic player, one of the best in our area and a former on-the-road tech for Ted Nugent as well. Our friend is very much into acoustic jazz these days and since his band is excellent he has gigs all over the place and makes his living playing out.

He needed a vintage archtop that could cross the border and have none of the embargoed materials on it. So he started with an eBay beater, vintage Epiphone archtop and one by one removed all of the BRW pieces. This included the fret board and the bridge. A replacement fret board was crafted by Andy Birko out of highly flamed maple and our friend duplicated the bridge also out of the same stick of highly flamed maple.

As for the out come it looks a bit like Joe Namath's white shoes to my eye but still looks very cool with maple fret board and bridge and now the thing can cross over into Canada without our friend being subjected to cavity searches....

The world is adjusting to CITES and Lacey and this is one example of how a creative Luthier and excellent player brought his own gigging guitar into compliance.

Thanks for your thoughts, Al.

Good point Alan…
I was wondering, can you tell what the grain of a tree might look like before cutting it down, (like predict whether a certain portion might have flame or whatever) or do these guys just cut a bunch of maple down, and then massacre it to bits looking for figure…???
Ive cut down wood for milling… but Ive never gone hunting for figure before..
one thing I figured out for wood scores was.. make friends with your local "tree service" guys… one guy has turned me onto some good curing wood… and some firewood … and chips for garden paths, and chips for smokehouse (apple mainly)…
thanks charlie

Some types of figure can be spotted in the standing tree. The Forest Service (I believe) pits out a little booklet on spotting birdseye figure in the woods, to keep loggers from cutting them wrong. That stuff is really valuable for veneer, and you can make a good log more or less worthless with one wrong cut. I suspect the 'quilt' figure they're after is also visible in the growth habit of the tree.