butt timber sizes

[TheRowdyOne]

@Jay-J forgot to ask are you playing in the Mackay Open? I only found out about it tonight. Thinking about coming up but I have to work on the Monday so I'm only thinking about it at the moment.

[trevs1]

Wow.. I find this statement really odd. I'm from NZ, where the Kauri tree originates, and all the kauri I have seen used for decorative purposes is anything but plain, drab and uninteresting.

For example:
http://www.langcaster.com/making-guitars.html

That said, you can get very plain kauri:
http://www.kauriwarehouse.co.nz/flooring.html#nz-kauri

I think the big difference is that the kauri used in the guitars is 'ancient' stuff, which was buried up to 50,000 years ago and has only recently (last 100 years) been dug up. This differs from the 'new' stuff which is a much more plain wood (see the 2nd link re: flooring which was cut in the 1920s).

I am not sure what makes the 'ancient' stuff look the way it does, probably the gum, see:
http://www.amfed.org/images/endow/en...%20Gum_53k.jpg

This gum (semi-fossilised kauri resin) was exported from NZ to the UK in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries where it was manufactured into varnish among other things. There was a large industry in NZ where "gum-diggers" would dig the stuff up. It's why in NZ we call Wellington boots, Gumboots

I don't work with wood, so I can't really comment on what it might be like to use on a cue, but they do make fairly intricate things out of it... however it might require some sort of coating to prevent it cracking as I believe it is fairly dry stuff.

The bits I was sent looked pretty much like the plainer stuff amongst the images here......

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=kau...w=1020&bih=567

I'm sure there will be more interesting pieces of it, but in the main, it's probably mostly like the stuff which IS plain, drab and uninteresting in the images above. Having said that, there will be some unusual bits which have some burr figure in them, or other figure when the section is cut from near the base of the tree or near the root system (where there is often more figure to the timber), or where it has been discoloured by burial in bogs for thousands of years. A similar principle applies to brown oak or bog oak, which, compared to your usual European or Amercian white oak, has a fabulous dark streaky colouring to it. Timber species are not always totally predictable, and will vary from piece to piece. I think most people would be amazed at just how different samples of the exact same species can be, and would barely notice that it was from the same type of tree. An example of that is Padauk, (not African) which in the burr form is Amboyna burr and completely stunning, but in the usual plain board form is pretty bland and without much figure. The same applies to hundreds of types of tree species, where the standard timber it yields is plain, but the freak pieces are stunning. It appears to be that many may think that these "freak pieces" are readily available and can be sourced whenever and wherever, when in fact, some are incredibly rare and difficult to get, and are just not always "there to buy" on the world market.

What you also need to factor into this is that for the speciality timber merchants, dealing in exotics, it pays to encourage a sense of "uniqueness" in selling the stuff. I've lost count of how many times over the years I've heard one or another saying how this or that is being placed on the Cities Register, or is now illegal to log or fell in the country of origin, or other such guff. I wouldn't argue that there is some truth to some of it, but at times it's sales talk, to get people to think they need to buy the stock they might have now, as it may not be around for a while, or even at all again in the future.

I will admit though, some species ARE becoming very tricky to get, and when they are available, they are frighteningly expensive.

[cally]

How AWESOME is the staircase in that link trev posted eh...

Love it....

[jay_j]

id have to agree with trevs last post it come down to ppl think because there paying a premium price for the stuff the there getting a premium piece of timber as u would with new stuff but in the case of this old stuff your paying top dollar for the age alone and if u want the nice figgered piece you'll have to fork out more coin again
my mum has a vase turned out of a bit of root that my dad did for her many years ago and the grain is stunning but then most boards are just old boards

[jay_j]

@Jay-J forgot to ask are you playing in the Mackay Open? I only found out about it tonight. Thinking about coming up but I have to work on the Monday so I'm only thinking about it at the moment.

yeah if im not going to tassy that weekend ill be there. did u go up to the tville open??