Paul B wrote:If it's good for masts on sailing ships, then it might be good for our use too (they need a good stiffness to weight ratio also).
There are those who argue, and with good reason, that aside from clearing away the back log of convicts from the uld mug, one of the main reasons that Australia was colonised was due to the promise of the Norfolk Island Pine. Captain James Cook had sailed past Norfolk Island and noted strands of tall pines most suitable for mast and spar. That was an assumption that would later prove to be wrong.
Before the colonisation of Australia, England had been clearing it's gaols by sending it's convicts to America as a source of cheap labour for the flax farms of southern America. England had control of the USA, so they could take all the spruce they desired and the flax was a captured market. But then, the USA won their independence from England and with the independence, England had lost her main resource of mast timbers and flax which was used for the manufacture of sail cloth.
This was a major blow for she who ruled the waves. Military might at that time was measured in ships of war. Without mast and sail, she would rule no more. This and that fact that her arched enemy the French had now, through support of the Americans, secured unlimited access to the resource that once was their own realy stung.
So back to those pine on Norfolk:
In 1770, when Cook sailed past Norfolk Island noting the pines, he had continued up the coast of eastern Australia. Joseph Banks, his ships botanist, has noted that some areas along the eastern sea board presented ideal grounds for the production of flax.
When the home secretary and lord of the Admiralty revisited Cook's notes after the tea party of 1773, a new interest was shown in Australia. Not only did colonisation offer the prospect of replacing a lost resource, but it also presented a possible solution to the over-flowing prison hulks. The fact that the British had also got wind that the French were now sniffing around our waters presented the threat that they may garrison Norfolk and commandeer that resources for themselves. This no doubt also assisted the British to finally make the decision to colonise Australia.
The 'irony' is that the first log dropped on Norfolk reveal the truth about the pines. The timber is completely unsuitable for masts or spars. The wood has many knots and curves in the grain making it weak and prone to sheering or snapping under the stress of a tall sail rather than bending along it's length spreading the load as the straighter grain species were known to do.
As for flax? The rain fall in Australia proved far too low and unpredictable in this, one of the most arid of countries. The test crops withered and died and the entire venture, at least from a military perspective, had been a failure. However those same harsh conditions which ruined the flax did proved to be an ideal way for England to rid herself of those convicts that had nowhere else to go.
Make your guitar from Norfolk Pine Alan, put a label inside saying "Cook's Promise" and when people ask, tell'm the story in a song.
Cheers
Kim
