Taylor 2010 Spring Limited Editions

Posted on September 21, 2017 | Leave a comment

2010SpringLTDsa

Above L-R: Tasmanian Blackwood 514ce-LTD, Walnut 414ce-LTD

For the fourth consecutive year Taylor Guitars included Tasmanian blackwood in a limited edition set. Spring 2010 saw 9 limited edition models of which 2 featured Tasmanian blackwood, this time in the 500 series thanks to the highly figured blackwood.

Bob Taylor and his design team herald spring’s arrival with a quartet of limiteds that promise to invigorate the senses.

Our Spring Limiteds have become one of those typically atypical Taylor design projects. Rather than making a firm commitment to come up with something each spring, Bob and his fellow designers wait to see if the product development stars align. Are there any reserves of exotic woods available that invite special treatment? Which models are generating lots of excitement around the factory? We think you’ll be happy with this year’s outcome (Wood & Steel Vol 63).

Tasmanian blackwood is often compared to its better-known cousin, Hawaiian koa. We gathered an assortment of impressively figured backs and sides for this run, making this a special upgrade to our 500 Series. Tonally, blackwood shares koa’s blend of midrange bloom and top end brightness, and will grow sweetly mellower over time, with great dynamic range.

Both models are topped with Sitka spruce and include Ivoroid binding, an abalone rosette, and an all-gloss finish [and gold-coloured tuners].

Tasmanian blackwood is often compared with Hawaiian koa as a tonewood. It’s a natural comparison to make but it can quickly turn to blackwood’s disadvantage if overdone as a marketing strategy. I think Tasmanian blackwood is more than capable of standing on its own two feet (roots??) as a quality tonewood.

Here’s a Spring Taylor 2010 516ce-LTD for sale on Reverb:

https://reverb.com/item/4445536-taylor-516ce-ltd-spring-limited-2010-tasmanian-blackwood-sitka

Production numbers (courtesy of Taylor Guitars) were:

MODEL PRODUCTION
514ce-LTD 301
516ce-LTD 215

 

https://www.taylorguitars.com/

Over four consecutive years 2007-2010 Taylor Guitars produced almost 2,700 guitars across 9 Limited Edition models featuring Tasmanian blackwood.

My next spotlight will be on the 2012 Spring Limited Edition GS mini models.

Previous Taylor spotlights:

2004 Fall Limited Editions – when Taylor Guitars first introduced Tasmanian blackwood

Taylor GS4e 2007 Fall Limited Edition

Taylor 2008 Spring Limited Editions

Taylor 2009 Spring Limited Editions

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Posted in Markets, Taylor Guitars, Tonewood

Gippsland Blackwood Plantation Management Workshop

Posted on September 15, 2017 | 8 comments

GAN1

These are notes from a recent workshop:

On Sunday afternoon 22nd April the Gippsland Agroforestry Network (GAN) held a blackwood workshop. The aim was to look at the options of managing a blackwood plantation and put some theory into practice.

In 2011 about a hectare of blackwood was planted on an alluvial creek flat as part of a stream front revegetation project. The blackwoods were planted as tubes at a spacing of  2m x 2m. The intention was to encourage straight vertical growth of the young trees and to restrict their propensity to fork and branch. The trees are now in the order of 6m tall and ranging from 8 to 15 cm diameter at breast height (1.3m).

The field day discussed the New Zealand view that the only way to control the blackwoods  enthusiasm to fork and branch was to continually (annually) form prune and to remove any side branches from the central stem if they were more than 2cm in diameter. Viewing the trees, it was considered that this was probably the best option as despite being form pruned in 2014 (as 3yo stems)  and lift pruned to 2m in 2015, there was considerable forking and co-dominant stems that had emerged since. The conclusion was that form pruning should have been carried out as an annual activity (at least) over the past 3 years.

I hope the field day discussed the New Zealand 3 principles of good blackwood management.

So what is the first of the three principles?

  1. Good site selection.

Was there any discussion about the planting site in terms of rainfall, soils and wind exposure? Without good site selection the chances of success are very limited.

What is the second principle?

2. Good establishment.

The trees were tube stock planted at 2×2 m spacing.

What was the site preparation?

What was the weed control?

Was any fertiliser added?

Was any browsing protection/control used?

And finally what is the third principle?

3. Good management.

We know the trees were form pruned in 2014 and lift pruned in 2015.

New Zealanders talk about annual browsing control, weed control and pruning.

Was weed control used in the first few years?

Every blackwood field day/workshop should focus on the New Zealand 3 Principles.

The need to thin the plantation was also discussed. Clearly, the trees were competing given the close planting and a number had died. Small lower branches above the 2m lift prune were largely dead, significant leaf fall had occurred and the ground beneath the trees was totally bare.  Misshapen trees were identified for culling and there was debate as to the best way to remove them. Stem injection was considered but rejected due to the risk of flashback. It was decided that cutting at ground level was the best option with the wallaby population taking care of the regrowth.  There was also discussion as to the extent of the thinning. Removing all the identified trees (about 60%) would remove much of the vertical stimulus and probably encourage further forking .  As a result, it was agreed that about half the identified trees would be removed this winter and the rest in 12 months. It was noted that this would also reduce the amount of debri on the ground at the one time. The proposed thinning would reduce the density from the current 2000 stems / ha to about 1400 with the second half of the thinning reducing this to about 800.

Lift pruning was then carried out on the selected trees to about 4m and further form pruning was undertaken.

It would be interesting to see what his plantation looks like after some thinning and pruning.

Judging by the photos there would appear to be an opportunity to rescue this plantation.

Thanks to David for passing these notes on.

GAN2

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Posted in Plantations

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The Radical Sawmill #2

Posted on September 8, 2017 | Leave a comment

NCFS

Some further thoughts on The Radical Sawmill and the Doyle Log Scaling Factor.

https://blackwoodgrowers.com.au/2017/09/04/the-radical-sawmill/

The American system of trading logs based on the Doyle Scaling factor means that every sale begins with the premise

“this log is a liability, the grower must be penalised”,

instead of

“this log is an opportunity, the grower must be encouraged to grow more quality logs”.

BF_CUMratio

You would think under these negative conditions any serious forest grower would set up their own sawmill and do their own milling.

Why would a forest grower sell logs into such a punitive market?

Forest Grower and Sawmilling Cooperatives should be the order of the day in the USA.

For a forest industry looking to build its future the Doyle Log Scale is a very bad idea. It does nothing but send a negative message to the market.

Not that the forest products market in Australia is any better. We have our own unique set of punitive measures to discourage private tree growers. But at least we do trade logs based on the small end or mid diameters. Or even a total log volume estimate based on SED and LED. The log is traded as an opportunity not a liability.

 

The Sunrise Sawmill in Ashville, North Carolina is obviously a small business, with limited resources for marketing and promotion.

How much is it really thinking about the future of the forest industry in North Carolina?

The State of North Carolina encourages private forest owners to develop a “Woodland Management Plan”.

http://ncforestservice.gov/Managing_your_forest/why_do_i_need_a_plan.htm

One of the objectives of these Plans is to improve the productivity and commercial value of the private forest through active management.

If I was a sawmiller thinking beyond my own needs to the future of the broader industry:

  1. I’d stop penalising the grower by using the Doyle Log Scaling Factor, and pay for the small end diameter total log volume. Consider each log an opportunity not a liability.
  2. I’d be offering a log price premium (10-15%) to private forest owners who had a Woodland Management Plan in place.
  3. I would also consider supporting and encouraging the development of forest grower cooperatives as a way of building the industry.
  4. I’d be looking to establish good long term relationships with the better forest growers. This means I would have more confidence in the quality of the logs from those growers and be able to offer them a better price. That’s a win-win situation.

In fact the more I think about this the more I realise that whilst the sawlog may be important for the sawmiller for today, this week or this month; what is ultimately more important is the forest grower. How important is this forest grower to the sawmiller and the broader industry? That is the ultimate question for the sawmiller!

Greater log price transparency is a great beginning to help build the forest industry, but I suspect that much more is needed from the forest industry. The New Zealand experience supports this view. A broad level of industry/market support and encouragement is needed for landowners/forest owners to consider investing time and money over such a long period to grow quality wood.

As for North Carolina, North Carolina is home to 18.6 million acres (7.5 million ha) of forestland, 85% (6.4 million ha) of which is privately owned.  Approximately 64% of these privately held lands are owned by non-industrial landowners.  Despite the enormous growth our state has witnessed, 60% of North Carolina is still covered by forests.

https://www.ncforestry.org/nc-forest-data/forest-products-industry-in-north-carolina/

I wonder how many of these NC private forest owners have Woodland Management Plans?

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Posted in Commentary

The Radical Sawmill

Posted on September 4, 2017 | 8 comments

Sunrise

Sawlogs take a long time to grow! Decades long!!

So if you are a sawmiller looking to secure your resource/business beyond next week or next year, you need to be aggressive in the market place.

Selling sawn timber is fine but if there are no sawlogs coming in, then its game over.

Under the unique resource conditions of the forest industry it could be argued that for a sawmiller, buying sawlogs is actually more important than selling timber!

So here is one sawmiller from Ashville, North Carolina, USA who is very aggressive and up front about securing their future.

http://sunrisesawmill.com/

This sawmill provides a current table of prices they are prepared to pay forest growers for logs delivered to their mill, by species and log grade.

I have never seen a sawmiller in Australia who actively seeks to buy sawlogs in the open market like this.

This is one Radical Sawmiller!

http://sunrisesawmill.com/log-prices/

Converting these prices into something that Australian/New Zealand readers can understand is problematic because:

  • Americans trade logs using board feet (12” x 1” x 1”) as a volume measure; and
  • They confuse the log pricing issue even more by then applying a sawn recovery scaling factor so that the board foot volume changes depending upon the small end diameter of the log. Sunrise use the Doyle Log scaling factor.

The use of a log scaling factor makes the job of the forest grower even more difficult than it already is!

The job of the forest grower should be to grow quality and size/volume. It should be the responsibility of the log buyer to then recover the best value from the logs via markets and/or technology.

The Doyle Log scaling factor uses the log small end diameter (under bark) and log length. There is no allowance for log taper.

So I took the Doyle Table provided by Sunrise Sawmills and did a bit of maths to produce the following chart. As a straight forward conversion there are 424 board feet (BF) in a cubic metre (CUM). With the Doyle Log Scaling factor the number of board feet per cubic metre in a log increases as the diameter increases as the chart shows. This is to account for the fact that sawn recovery increases as log diameter increases. So in the USA log buyers only buy based on a notional “recovery”. The grower pays for wastage. In Australia and New Zealand logs are traded based on total log volume, with the buyers then responsible for maximising the value from the log.

I also did some calculations to see what effect a 2% log taper would have. Obvious it means that the grower is paying for even more waste (less recovery).

BF_CUMratio

On the positive side you could say that using the Doyle Scaling factor encourages/rewards growers for growing bigger trees, with larger logs getting three times the price of smaller logs.

But my feeling is that using this method for trading logs just confuses the issues.

With this chart in mind it is interesting to note the price difference at Sunrise between the veneer vs the prime sawlog. With veneer logs it is possible to get over 95% recovery. So in terms of volume recovered, the veneer and prime sawlogs are essentially the same price! But appearance grade veneer sells for much more by volume than sawn timber. These prices don’t quite add up.

These guys even have their own Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/Sunrise-Sawmill-193257651998/

It is good to see a sawmiller who understands the importance of aggressive transparent marketing in buying sawlogs and securing their future.

The question remains outstanding; does this aggressive marketing and log prices translate into a prosperous community of forest growers in North Carolina?

For Australian readers it needs to be understood that the eastern USA forest industry is entirely dominated by private forest owners. There is no logging of public native forest in the eastern USA. No subsidised sawlogs. If you are a sawmiller in the eastern USA you need to be low cost, efficient and aggressive in the marketplace. It’s all business; no politics! Just like in New Zealand there is no such thing as “resource security” in the forest industry in the USA. Such a concept doesn’t exist!

Oh how I wish this would happen in Australia.

The only basis for a successful forest industry is profitable tree growing (and radical sawmillers).

PS. A target blackwood plantation sawlog (60cm dbh pruned 6m) has approx 360 board feet by the Doyle Scaling factor. At $US1,000 per 1000 MF (Sunrise price for Black Walnut) that equates to $US360 per log. At the current exchange rate of $AU0.80 to $US1.00 that equates to $AU450 per log mill door. In my books that is a pretty acceptable price…….for a premium sawlog. For a premium veneer log I’d be expecting much, much more.

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Posted in Commentary, Markets

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The message couldn’t be clearer

Posted on August 29, 2017 | 1 comment

CFM.png

Dear Martin enthusiast,

……………………………..

I’d like to ask you personally to be open to the use of alternative materials.

I love tradition as much as anyone. I believe it’s possible that the new woods we are introducing today can become the accepted and traditional [and sustainable] woods of tomorrow.

 

Sincerely,

C.F. Martin IV

Chairman & CEO

C.F. Martin & Co., Inc.

Having ranted about the guitar industry a few blogs back here I am eating a serve of humble pie.

This is a clear message to guitar buyers everywhere from Chris Martin, CEO at Martin Guitars. This message is in the latest Martin Journal (Vol. 7, p. 9):

https://www.martinguitar.com/about/martin-journal/

Being an old company with a significant product heritage can be a bonus and a drag.

When a large part of your customer base is focused exclusively on your heritage and not on where you want to go in the future then it can be a real problem.

Chris Martin is calling to his “heritage bound” customers –

Loosen up and give us a future……please!

To help drive that message home:

  • CF Martin should start a narrative. A narrative about change and the environment. About customers and guitars. They have made a start (I think) with an article on page 29 of the Martin Journal. It’s a good start but we need more of it; and
  • That message needs to be on the front page of CF Martins website; right there in everyone’s face! You won’t change your customers habits by having the message in the bottom draw of your desk.

The message is clear. There just needs to be more of it.

Good move Mr Martin!

Keep building the momentum for change.

PS. With such a powerful message from Chris Martin, I am surprised that the Martin Journal did not contain a feature article on alternative tonewoods. Was this a missed opportunity?

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Posted in CF Martin Guitars, Markets, Tonewood

Guitar Makers Challenged by New Rosewood Restrictions—and What This Means for Players

Posted on August 20, 2017 | 2 comments

rosewood2

This article appeared in the August 2017 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine. It makes for interesting reading.

http://acousticguitar.com/guitar-makers-challenged-by-new-rosewood-restrictions-and-what-it-means-for-players/

It doesn’t provide much in the way of new information, but gives insight into the challenges the guitar industry is facing in a rapidly changing tonewood market, and the different responses.

So will the price of rosewood tonewood increase as a result of the new CITES restrictions?

Of course it will!

As supplies of illegal rosewood become restricted the demand for Indian rosewood will increase. Indian rosewood supply will not increase in the short term so price must go up. The basic laws of economics.

Guitar makers are caught between a guitar-buying public that is resistant to alternative species and a shrinking supply of traditional tonewoods.

But anyone who goes to any guitar maker’s website will see plenty of images and products made from rare and exotic tonewoods. Try and find the word “sustainable” on these websites!

The guitar industry does not seem to be terribly serious about the problem.

Bedell Guitars are one of the few standout examples of a company that is trying hard to build a sustainable tonewood future and pushing the market in that direction. Their website is pretty good.

http://bedellguitars.com/

Bedell still believe that logging rainforest and oldgrowth is sustainable and where their future is; unlike Taylor Guitars who are making the move towards plantation tonewoods.

“When it comes to alternatives [tonewoods], there’s much more likelihood of supply chains being erratic in terms of quality and supply.”

Given that most of the world’s forests have been systematically plundered this is not surprising.

The guitar industry needs to start from scratch and help replant and grow new tonewood resources. Taylor Guitars are doing this. It’s time for the rest of the industry to get on board.

Tasmanian farmers are waiting to hear from the tonewood market.

Tasmanian blackwood – the [potentially] sustainable tonewood.

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Posted in Commentary, Markets, Tonewood

The New Maton Blackwood Series

Posted on August 16, 2017 | Leave a comment

Maton_Blackwood_Line_up_900_405_s

https://maton.com.au/product/the-maton-blackwood-series

Simplicity and purity of tone lay at the heart of the Blackwood range of Guitars.

Pure Blackwood tone -clear, bright trebles, strong mid range and full bass. The all Blackwood construction produces a unique compression, blending frequencies into a new, unique voice.

The Dreadnought Cutaway and the 808 from the New Maton Blackwood Series will be available from the 14th August 2017, the rest of the range will be available later in the year.

There were rumours of this new series of blackwood guitars earlier this year.

And here they are finally in all their blackwood glory.

As a blackwood enthusiast what can I say?

The all-blackwood acoustic guitar should be an Aussie music icon.

Cole Clark has been doing this for a few years now. And finally Maton has joined the team.

My wish is that Maton would open up and tell us the back story of where the wood comes from.

Does the guitar industry want to encourage farmers to grow more quality tonewoods?

Where does this blackwood timber come from? Who grew it? Please tell us the story so that other farmers are inspired!

This new blackwood series would be the ideal opportunity to start that journey.

In the mean time congratulations to Maton.

I hope they sell like hot blackwoods!!

When someone does a video review of these I’ll post it here.

Cheers!

So here is a video of the new all-blackwood EBW70c from Maton Guitars courtesy of The Acoustic Centre in Melbourne, Victoria:

Nice guitar!

Here’s another video from Music Junction in Melbourne:

This new Blackwood Series from Maton seems to be creating quite a stir.

Enjoy!

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Posted in Markets, Maton Guitars, Tonewood

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IST Tender Results 2016-17 addendum

Posted on August 13, 2017 | Leave a comment

https://blackwoodgrowers.com.au/2017/07/27/ist-tender-results-2016-17/

Looking at how small some of the IST tendered logs are, I thought I’d create a chart showing average sold log volume.

ISTSoldVol

For some context to this chart, the target plantation blackwood log is 1.5 cubic metres in volume (DBH 60 cm pruned to 6 metres).

So you can see from the above chart that IST sold logs are pretty small. In fact given that the chart shows the average volume, some of them are downright tiny (less than 0.1cubic metres).

That these small logs can command such high prices is quite extraordinary.

I’ll include this chart in future reports.

 

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Posted in Island Specialty Timbers, Markets, Prices

Has one act changed our course forever?

Posted on August 11, 2017 | Leave a comment

KL

Kevin Lyons (Tasmanian deputy premier 1969 – 1972)

http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/has-one-act-changed-our-course-forever/news-story/d1b6601e86aafbed4f06f20233e3c10f

This excellent short article in last Saturdays Mercury (5/8/2017) newspaper provides interesting background to how first the Hydro and then the forest industry became willing participants in the environmental wars that have dominated Tasmanian politics for the past 45 years.

The alleged bribing of a State MP and the bringing down of an elected Government provided the spark that went on to become first the dam wars (1970-1983) and then the forestry wars/crisis (1983-present).

The arrival of a party (the United Tasmania Group that went on to become the Greens) focused on the environment was a double-edged sword. It delivered victories for the natural world, and attracted support from disaffected Labor and Liberal voters.

However, without a mandate to govern, the presence of the Greens has helped marginalise the environment as a party-political issue rather than as a matter that should be front and centre of all human endeavour.

Anti-Green sentiment is now a factor in the voting patterns of a cohort of Tasmanians large enough to deliver power to whichever major party is prepared to harvest the negativity.

It is a vicious cycle. Divisions in our community are amplified by major parties competing for the anti-Green vote. Governing parties incite this conflict to maintain power. We have seen it all the way through from premiers such as Reece to Robin Gray and Paul Lennon, with overt displays of aggression and ridicule to green ideas in a bid to firm their voter base.

The forest industry is not mentioned specifically but any Tasmanian knows immediately what the author is talking about. Up until 2011 the forest industry was a more-than-willing participant in these high-stakes political games.

But the only winners in political games are the politicians. Everyone else loses!

And so many Tasmanians still believe the political rhetoric as if it was gospel. Finger pointing has become a Tasmanian obsession.

A vicious and destructive cycle indeed!

Recommended reading.

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Posted in 2018 State Election, Commentary, Politics

Hoop pine

Posted on August 5, 2017 | 3 comments

Hoop

The recent discussion about Bunya pine and the tonewood market led me to wonder about Queensland Hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii)

Hoop pine is the only premium plantation timber species currently harvested in Australia. Some 500 ha are harvested each year. It is not known how much wood is produced from this harvest.

As such Hoop pine provides the only example in Australia of what a future plantation blackwood market might look like; with the one exception that if I was around I would be trumpeting the blackwood market dynamics as much as possible. Market transparency is vital!

Here’s a Hoop pine fact sheet from the Queensland government:

http://era.daf.qld.gov.au/id/eprint/3931/4/hoop%20pine%20final%20factsheet_update%20May%202017.pdf

(Curious how these forest fact sheets never talk about economics or log prices, as if investing in trees has nothing to do with money!)

The 44,500 ha of Hoop pine plantations were established by the Queensland Government but were sold when the Government decided to privatise the forest plantation resource in 2010, and are now owned by the one company,  Hancock Timber Resource Group, with the plantations managed by HQPlantations.

http://www.hqplantations.com.au/araucaria.html

So far as I’m aware the forest industry is not seeking to encourage the expansion of the Hoop pine plantation resource. Given that the Hoop pine owners pay no local Government rates, expansion of this resource by competing landowners will be difficult.

No one will ever know how much the market is paying for Hoop pine logs. It’s difficult enough to find Hoop pine timber retail prices. Timber merchants positively hate advertising their prices. So the economics of plantation Hoop pine as an investment are unknown and that’s the way the forest industry likes it.

If you spend a lot of time searching on the internet you may find the following economic study of plantation hoop pine investment:

Herbohn, J.L. 2006, ‘Potential financial returns from Hoop Pine and an assessment of the likely impacts of various support measures on landholder willingness to plant’, in Harrison, S.R. and Herbohn, J.L (ed.), Proceedings of Sustainable Forest Industry Development in Tropical North Queensland; Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management, Rainforest CRC, Cairns.

Herbohn 2006

The study uses a stumpage of just $70 per cubic metre for a 45-50 year-old plantation grown premium wood product!!

That would certainly kill any landholder willingness to plant!

All a 2012 Queensland Government report on the State forest industry could say about Hoop pine was these 60 words:

Araucaria (hoop pine) plantations consist largely of plantings of hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii), with smaller areas of bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii). However, araucaria log timber is relatively costly to produce because of high management and harvesting inputs, largely as a result of the steep sites on which it has been established and high pruning costs. Crop rotation lengths are also very long at around 40 to 50 years.

State of Queensland (2012) Queensland forest and timber industry situation analysis.

It doesn’t sound encouraging does it?

Nevertheless I managed to track down one Hoop pine retail price list:

HoopPriceChart

It’s a curious price list in terms of the limited sizes available and the prices. High prices for small cuts but not for big cuts. Wide boards (140mm) are cheaper, with thicker wide boards (31mm) being cheaper than thin boards (12mm). The prices on the range of 42mm wide boards (8, 19, 31 and 42 mm) provides for some curious deliberation.

What is clear is that these represent premium prices (~$9,000 per cubic metre) for premium plantation timber. Compare these prices with the $2,500 per cubic metre for dressed premium grade Radiata pine from Bunnings Hardware:

https://blackwoodgrowers.com.au/2016/07/01/bunnings-timber-price-lists/

It would certainly be interesting to know the details of the business model the Hoop pine plantation owner uses to maximise returns to the company. Just exactly how profitable are these plantations to the owner? This price list gives us few clues.

If any readers have Hoop pine growing I’d love to hear your stories. Send us a comment.

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Posted in Plantations, Price Lists