Latest IST blackwood tender results

Posted on October 4, 2014 | Leave a comment

The latest tender results have been posted by Island Specialty Timbers. These tender results provide the only publically available open, competitive prices for blackwood logs.

The September tender had 26 parcels.

24 of the 26 logs and timber lots sold at fair to very strong prices, including a record price for one black-heart sassafras log, $3800 / m3.

Great news!

The one blackwood log in the tender was a mixed blessing. The log contained both fiddle-back and tear drop figure. But these attributes came with issues: fluting, spiral grain, severe log taper, with holes and limbs. Generally a difficult log, but [as IST described] contains excellent material for turning blanks or a low recovery of figured timber.

It looks a monster!

IST 0914 log20

Length 3.6 metres, butt diameter 95 cm, head diameter 73 cm, volume 1.99 cubic metres.

And this mixed blessing sold for $1,000 per cubic metre or just under $2,000 for the log.

A great price!

Remember this is a mill door equivalent price, not a stumpage price.

The one blackwood log tendered at the previous IST tender in August failed to sell. It too was a difficult log but with plain rather than figured grain. Clearly the market for figured blackwood timber will pay any money for any quality log whatsoever.

The last IST Geeveston tender for 2014 will open on Monday 27 October and close at 4.00 pn on Monday 10 November 2014.   A range of logs, slabs and sawn timber will be offered. 

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Posted in Markets, Prices

The Fall Limited Sweepstakes

Posted on October 3, 2014 | Leave a comment

http://www.taylorguitars.com/promotions/2014-fall-ltd

sweeps-2014-fall-ltd-header

Up for grabs, this beauty from Taylor Guitars. Unfortunately this sweepstakes is only open to US and Canadian residents.

The Taylor 510e-FLTD is a limited edition Dreadnought featuring Tasmanian blackwood back and sides and a Sitka spruce top. Neo-vintage aesthetic strokes include a shaded edgeburst body and neck, plus ivoroid appointments anchored by the Century fretboard inlay. We’ve partnered with Dunlop and JamPlay.com to offer the perfect player package, which includes a personalized pick tin, a supply of Dunlop Primetone picks, and a Victor capo. The winner will also receive a one-year membership to JamPlay.com with unlimited access to thousands of guitar lessons. One (1) grand prize winner will receive:

  • One (1) Taylor 510e-FLTD
  • One (1) Year Membership to JamPlay.com
  • One (1) Year Supply of Primetone Guitar Picks
  • One (1) Dunlop Victor Capo
  • One (1) Personalized Dunlop Pick Tin.

Great prize and great promotion and support for Tasmanian blackwood from Taylor Guitars.

I wonder if I can get my sister in the US to enter the competition for me?

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Posted in Markets, Support, Taylor Guitars, Tonewood

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Review of Taylor Guitars Fall 2014 Limited Edition models featuring Tasmanian blackwood and sassafras

Posted on September 20, 2014 | Leave a comment

Here’s a great review of three of the recently released limited edition models from Taylor Guitars featuring Tasmanian blackwood and sassafras.

Beautiful guitars from Taylor Guitars with tonewoods supplied by Tasmanian Tonewoods.

http://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars/acoustic/series/2014-fall-limiteds

http://blackwoodgrowers.com.au/2014/08/02/taylor-guitars-put-tasmanian-tonewoods-on-display/

http://blackwoodgrowers.com.au/2014/08/18/more-taylor-guitars-promotion-of-tasmanian-tonewoods/

Sassafras as a tonewood will only ever be available on a limited basis due to it’s restricted distribution and slow growth rate. Blackwood however has huge potential as a sustainable, readily available tonewood due to its wide distribution and fast growth rate. Provided we can convince Tasmanian farmers to grow it.

Now how do we do that?

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Posted in Markets, Taylor Guitars, Tonewood

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War and peace – and war again? The battle for Tasmania’s ancient forests

Posted on September 19, 2014 | 1 comment

The Guardian

18/09/2014

Guardian

I sure do get tired of all the politics in this business. I wish I could just focus on good news stories but they are far outnumbered by stories of politics and conflict.

But this story in The Guardian is very well written, if a bit long. And it has a nice focus on the human aspect of the whole terrible ongoing battle.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/18/-sp-tasmanian-forestry-peace-deal

Tasmania does not have a forest industry.

It has a war zone.

And all of this madness whilst the State forest management agency Forestry Tasmania remains technically bankrupt, and only able to survive by continuing taxpayer subsidies.

It’s a taxpayer subsidised war zone.

Enjoy the read.

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Posted in Commentary, Forestry Tasmania, Politics

Tasmania’s magnificent blackwoods

Posted on September 13, 2014 | Leave a comment

The forest industry TV series “Going Bush” offers a traditional view of the “public service/public forest” forest industry. It’s a view dominated by science and professionalism. In my view that is a very 19th century attitude to forestry that just doesn’t work in the 21st century.

As their website says:

The television show about our forests, the people who work in them and the industries they support. Going Bush is designed to be entertaining, informative and most of all give the proud and passionate people that work in our forest industries a voice, a chance to tell their stories.

http://www.goingbush.tv/

This particular video on blackwood is an excerpt from Series 4 Episode 2 and comes from a few years ago.

The video showcases some of the issues around public native blackwood forest management and the blackwood industry. There is no doubt that Forestry Tasmania has contributed significantly to our understanding of native blackwood forest management, in the same way that New Zealand farmers and foresters have dominated research into successful commercial blackwood plantation management.

The video is a bit of forest industry propaganda that highlights the “good bits”. There is a “business-as-usual, everything is going really well, don’t you worry” persona about the video that hides the very real turmoil within the industry. Blackwood issues such as the overcutting and mismanagement of the public resource, taxpayer subsidies, the incessant politics and community conflict are conveniently ignored.

And as for the remark by the hosts near the end of the video that there will be “blackwood sawlogs for decades to come” that is a long way from the truth.

Apart from that it’s entertaining.

Enjoy!

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Posted in Commentary, Forestry Tasmania

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Continuing into the abyss

Posted on August 28, 2014 | Leave a comment

With resolute determination, precision and predictability the Tasmanian forest industry continues its long, slow, painful journey towards extinction with the dismantling of the Tasmanian Forestry Agreement 2013.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-28/tasmanian-forestry-repeal-bill-passes-parliament/5702524?section=tas

http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/liberals-forestry-bill-passes-first-vote-in-legislative-council/story-fnj4f7k1-1227038639934

http://www.examiner.com.au/story/2519505/mlcs-poised-to-axe-forest-deal/?cs=95

And despite numerous promises by the State Treasurer and the State Resources Minister to not continue using scarce Tasmanian taxpayers money to subsidise the logging of public native forest, that is exactly what has been announced for yet another year.

With no plan for the forest industry and no plan to change Forestry Tasmania into a fully commercial profitable Government Business Enterprise, there is now little hope for the future of the industry.

With the forestry wars resuming it is unlikely Forestry Tasmania will gain FSC certification. Not that it matters. Either way no one but the Chinese will buy Tasmanian forest products; and the Chinese will only buy if the Tasmanian taxpayer pays for the harvesting and transport.

It’s pretty much all over! There is nothing left but a whole lot more pain for the community to endure.

It’s now just a case of watching the last remaining customers close business – the sawmills, the furniture factories, the craft shops and retailers.

This is economic and commercial mismanagement that the Tasmanian economy can well do without. Private forest growers are just overwhelmed by the tidal wave of negative political and market sentiment.

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Posted in Commentary, Forestry Tasmania, Politics

New group looks to become Fonterra of forestry

Posted on August 23, 2014 | Leave a comment

Here’s a great story for all those 14,000 New Zealand farm forest growers with plantations coming due for harvesting. If this is successful it will revolutionise the already very successful New Zealand forest industry. Forestry is New Zealand’s third largest export earner after dairy and meat. Last year’s total forestry exports were worth $NZ4.3 billion.

Yesterday a new forestry company, United Forestry Group, targeting owners of small forests in New Zealand was launched. Its cornerstone shareholder is a joint venture between international timber marketer Pentarch, which is headquartered in Melbourne and has been operating in New Zealand for more than 10 years, and a Chinese conglomerate, Xiangyu Group. The company’s offering small forest owners (there are around 14,000 forests under 1000 hectares which account for just over a third of New Zealand’s plantation resource) benefits similar to the pastoral sector’s co-operatives such as Fonterra in marketing and economies of scale.

It is believed production from New Zealand’s small forest growers over the next 20 years could be worth $NZ30 billion.

http://www.fridayoffcuts.com/#1

http://www.3news.co.nz/United-Forestry-Group-aims-to-fight-wall-of-wood/tabid/421/articleID/357877/Default.aspx#ixzz3B9znGRRR

I wonder if the United Forestry Group will form sub-groups to offer these services to growers of other species besides Pinus radiata, such as blackwood? New Zealand blackwood growers would really benefit from such a service.

Those New Zealanders really do understand what forestry is all about.

I will be following this story closely over the coming years to see how it develops and keep readers informed. It’s good to have a good news story.

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Posted in Commentary, Cooperatives, Markets, New Zealand

Belligerent

Posted on August 21, 2014 | Leave a comment

Important market update

PaulHarrissMHA

Not many people would regard the Forestry (Rebuilding the Forest Industry) Bill 2014 currently before Tasmania’s Legislative Council as anything other than an act of belligerence.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-20/vote-to-tear-up-forest-peace-deal-delayed/5684846?section=tas

http://www.themercury.com.au/news/forestry-bill-set-to-pass-as-robert-armstronng-throws-his-weight-behind-the-plan/story-fnj4f7kx-1227031161942

The Bill provides privileged treatment for the so called special timbers industry. It effectively puts the special timbers industry above the law, subject to no effective planning, regulation or control.

The Bill gives anyone (excluding Forestry Tasmania) the opportunity to harvest special timbers from reserves, conservation areas and other public forest.

The Bill gives no consideration to commercial matters, profitability, sustainability or good forest management.

This will likely produce a special timbers free-for-all as everyone scrambles to take all the special timbers accessible from the existing road network, legally or otherwise. Never mind the land tenure, have ute and chainsaw – will harvest. Tasmanian sheds will be overflowing. A belligerent Government may well turn a blind eye.

This situation is already generating a swift, negative reaction from the Tasmanian community and the broader market. A consumer boycott of Tasmanian timbers including blackwood is almost inevitable.

This just arrived in the letterbox today so the community reaction is underway.

Special Timbers Protests

Special timbers events such as the Wooden Boat Festival and the Deloraine Stringfest will be particularly hard hit by the negative reaction.

The problem for my business is the there is no way for the market to distinguish between special timbers from private growers, and that harvested from public forest under this new legislation, or simply stolen.

Everyone in the special timbers industry will be significantly impacted, from sawmillers to merchants, craftspeople, and furniture and guitar makers all the way through to retailers.

The broader forest industry runs the very real risk that this issue wont be quarantined to just the special timbers industry, but will impact on the broader forest industry market. After all:

Forestry = politics = Tasmania!

Continuing to treat the special timbers industry as a taxpayer-funded sacred cow with free-reign to the public forest resource is guaranteed to turn very ugly. This has every chance of becoming Tasmania’s next forest industry disaster.

It will discourage existing and potential private special timbers growers from investing in the future of the industry. It is difficult to understand why the Government wants to destroy the iconic special timbers industry.

 

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Posted in Commentary, Markets, Politics

Deloraine Stringfest 2015

Posted on August 18, 2014 | 1 comment

Planning is underway to include a visit to a successful private blackwood plantation as part of the Deloraine Stringfest in March 2015. Transport will be by bus so places will be limited. Your chance to see and learn the art of growing commercial blackwood. Details to follow.

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Posted in Events, Markets, Stringfest, Tonewood

More Taylor Guitars promotion of Tasmanian tonewoods

Posted on August 18, 2014 | Leave a comment

Here’s Taylor Guitar’s Master Luthier Andy Powers promoting the new limited edition models featuring Tasmanian blackwood and black heart sassafras. Great video! Go Tasmanian tonewoods!

 

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Posted in Markets, Taylor Guitars, Tonewood