1 Topic by Artie'splaying (edited by Artie'splaying 2014-07-21 15:58:58)

  • Registered: 2012-12-23
  • Posts: 159

Topic: Brazilian Rosewood

It's widely recognized that Brazilian Rosewood is an ideal wood to use in the manufacture of musical instruments. Likewise, this wood has been endangered for decades and there are restrictions on harvesting and selling Brazilian Rosewood, making it very expensive.

Overlooking the question of whether Brazilian Rosewood is actually better than other types of Rosewood (or other species of wood), I'm wondering why Brazil has not made a concerted effort to renew their Rosewood stocks? It seems like they would be able to make a lot of money, not only from instrument makers, but from furniture makers, too.

  • From: Western Oregon,US
  • Registered: 2008-07-22
  • Posts: 2,498

Re: Brazilian Rosewood

Well, I'll bite on this one.  I'm from up here in the timber region, and have worked not only in the wood products industry, but also as a wood worker and furniture maker and luthier.  This is only a guess, but species of trees (for a simple general term for a crop) have to be viable and profitable in order to justify expensive effort for cultivation.  Up here we mostly plant fir, hemlock, spruce, poplar, and other fairly fast growing species.  Concentrating on the ones that you can reasonably expect to harvest within your lifetime.  We replant 10 seedlings for each harvested, and lose 30% to predation, disease or drought.... Deer chew them up almost as fast as you get them in the ground.

Hardwoods like Rosewood take generations to reach harvest size.... in the case of many, in the range of several hundred years. As an example, I have a nice piece of Snakewood set aside for a mandolin fretboard. It took 80 years for the tree to grow the 2 inches of diameter to render enough "lumber" to make a half dozen fretboard slabs.  It's beautiful wood, dense and tougher than the back wall of a shooting gallery, but not practical as a crop that you might get to cut a couple thousand years from now.

Civilizations can collapse in less time than that!

Take Care;
Doug

"what is this quintessence of dust?"  - Shakespeare
  • From: Bellevue, WA
  • Registered: 2006-06-15
  • Posts: 3,336

Re: Brazilian Rosewood

Because Brazil is busy cutting down hardwood forests to make room for more grazing cattle.

Someday we'll win this thing...

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jerome.oneil's Website

  • Registered: 2012-12-23
  • Posts: 159

Re: Brazilian Rosewood

Yeah, it seems that short term profit always trumps long term investment.

  • NELA
  • Honoured Member
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  • From: West Monroe, La. 71292
  • Registered: 2007-11-28
  • Posts: 1,303

Re: Brazilian Rosewood

BWR, on new guitars is now a thing of the past unless the Luither has a supply of stored materials plus ton's of paperword documenting when, how and where it was harvested. Owners of instruments made with BWR must have documention of when their instrument was built, where it was built, type of wood, etc, when traveling or risk their instruments being confistated at custom check stations when traveling. From what I've read, these custom agents are not even trained to reconize the different wood types and will confistate anything that looks suspiscious. This ban cover's many types of wood as well as other materials such as ivory, tortise shell and henways just to name as few. YOU are responsible to provide the proof. This ban includes ANYTHING made with banned materials - musical instruments, furniture, toy's, pen's, eyeglasses and the list goes on. If you want to get a big surprise just look up "banned materials for musical instruments" on the internet.

NELA

NELA's Website

  • Registered: 2012-12-23
  • Posts: 159

Re: Brazilian Rosewood

That's interesting NELA; I guess they're really hardcore about trying to protect Brazilian Rosewood. Pity they didn't start growing more of it about 60 years ago.

7 Reply by Phill Williams (edited by Phill Williams 2014-07-22 22:38:34)

  • From: The Land Of Song
  • Registered: 2007-12-10
  • Posts: 5,649

Re: Brazilian Rosewood

i like brazilians....trust me to lower the tone....

Ask not what Chordie can do for you, but what you can do for Chordie.

Phill Williams's Website

8 Reply by Tenement Funster (edited by Tenement Funster 2014-07-22 20:59:10)

  • From: Nova Scotia, Canada
  • Registered: 2013-01-20
  • Posts: 4,083

Re: Brazilian Rosewood

Brazillian Rosewood and African Ebony have traditionally been the two woods of choice for most guitar fretboards. The primary reason is their hardness on the Janka scale, making them much less susceptible to wear. Due to them both being protected species (in one form or another) some manufacturers are gradually moving to a product called "Richlite", such as Gibson / Epiphone. Although generally well accepted for electric guitars, acoustic guitars have always been made of wood, and having a synthetic fretboard just doesn't seem right.

There are other very hard woods which are more readily available (Lignum Vitae, for example) but because they're lighter in color, they haven't been widely used or accepted. Here's an interesting article on Brazillian Rosewood, as well as one on the declining status of dark woods in general:

http://www.wood-database.com/lumber-ide … -rosewood/

http://www.wood-database.com/wood-artic … ark-woods/

Several have mentioned how short-term commercial interests have typically trumped longer-term thinking. If not too bright, human beings are at least consistent!