Got Wood?

[crunchee]

Just a PSA...got this from the Music Zoo, I'm not interested in a new Charvel, but the old growth white pine story sure got my attention:

http://www.themusiczoo.com/blog/2011/old-w...d%20Woodcontent

...but you'll pay for it, the Charvels that have the old growth white pine bodies are going for three grand.

I think the guy they're talking about who bought the building is Dean Kamen, the guy who brought us the Segway, NOT Dean Kaman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen

Sad thing is, is that HUGE building used to make products until 1990, killed by overseas competition. Now, it looks like it's being turned into a office complex. At least it's not being flattened.

[tobereeno]

never thought pine would be a high-end tonewood...

[bmenary]

Yea, I have never hear of pine being used period.... Pretty cool though- They are set up to ROCK...

Nice story thanks-

[atquinn]

Pine Teles seem to have become the in thing over the past few years. I've never played a pine guitar though.

-

Austin

[burningyen]

Yea, I have never hear of pine being used period....

Clearly you don't hang out at TDPRI!

[mc2]

Hmmmmm....I've bot some extra 150-year-old creosote soaked 2-inch thick bargeboard planks from my house in New Orleans....maybe I should use that for a blues guitar? Maybe make the neck from spare cypress floor boards of the same age. At least it will be waterproof

[crunchee]

Hmmmmm....I've bot some extra 150-year-old creosote soaked 2-inch thick bargeboard planks from my house in New Orleans....maybe I should use that for a blues guitar? Maybe make the neck from spare cypress floor boards of the same age. At least it will be waterproof

Bugproof, too. Not sure what creosote does for tone, though.

I think the 'Muddywood' guitar might be cypress as well, according to this:

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?p=11101113

[Toadroller]

In the summers of my freshman and sophomore years of college, I did building maintenance work in another of the main mill buildings in Manchester, the Jefferson.

I'd paint, fix plumbing, sweep, repair window panes (lots of windows!), you name it. One week they had me pull the side sashes from all the windows on a floor, cut the granite window weights out, and stack them on a kart. At the end of the week, I rolled that cart into a dark corner of the basement where I'm sure it still rests. Other highlights were "driving" and fixing the leather-strap operated freight elevator with old Pete and, one week, winding the clock in the tower.

I spent another week on the fourth floor with a belt sander, grinding a hundred years of grime from the textile floors in preparation for an office renovation. I didn't think then they'd recover the floors for guitars.

Those buildings have had and will continue to have many useful lives, from their original textile purposes from 1890s through a sputtering 70s and limping into the 80s, to office buildings to restaurants to lofts to college buildings. Though the textile industry has left the US pretty much for good, don't forget that Manchester was named after the global textile giant in England that it took down. But textiles went south; first to Lowell and then to Georgia and then out of country where it has probably helped other developing countries... develop.

In came high tech, such as Dec and many other software concerns. Manufacturing needs to find niches in America; USA guitars are a perfect example.

I'm in Manchester now, but it's Manchester, Maine. Maine's a state with a history of international shipping merchants (they're, um, gone), shoes, and of course the paper industry. Craftsmen find their markets here; there's no shortage of quality furniture makers, but serious scale industry has left the state- it's too expensive to compete.

There is a fascinating book, "Amoskeag" made from numerous interviews conducted in the late 1970s, that documents the establishment, rise, and decline of the industry and mills from the memories of employees all along the chain, from dye workers to management. Manchester has pretty strong ethnic history. The west side is strongly French Canadian, filled with names like Ouellette, Cyr, Burgeron, etc.

Thanks for the unexpected memories!

[kevinbower1959]

Great post, Toadroller, that's really interesting stuff. The situation in the UK is the same - we have almost no manufacturing left, and there are thousands of derelict buildings which once thrived and made products which were the envy of the world.

There's a group of guys here in the UK dedicated to (illegally) entering these places and photographing them before they get bulldozed, and you might find this interesting. Sad but interesting;

http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/forum...&order=desc

There are numerous other forum lists on this site, dedicated to other types of building - military, hospitals, etc.

[Thundernotes]

I drive by the Pandora building multiple times every day. Interesting and fitting use for that old wood, I'd say.

Very cool. Of course, every time you took it out of the case, you'd be opening Pandora's Box.....

Sorry.... couldn't help myself

[Toadroller]

...

There's a group of guys here in the UK dedicated to (illegally) entering these places and photographing them before they get bulldozed, and you might find this interesting. Sad but interesting;

http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/forum...&order=desc

Cool stuff!

I've been meaning to get down to Manchester for about five years and spend some serious time with the camera but life never quite works out. I love photography of things forgotten, especially buildings.

Very cool. Of course, every time you took it out of the case, you'd be opening Pandora's Box.....

You can't pull the wool over our eyes with that.

[DaveL]

sorry, missed this thread... good info Toadroller. Those mill buildings look

really nice nowadays. That section of town has a minor league ballpark

(real nice... with a hotel in left field) where I spend alot of time, and a hockey

arena which revitalized downtown... The Music Mill, a great thriving indy

music store (tons of used stuff, like what daddy's used to be) is within

walking distance to those mills, and just picked up the charvel line.

will have to see if he's bringing one in... that would be kind wierd that

it made full circle.