Fumigation trickery

JohnM · Post by **JohnM** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 12:50 am

Fumigation processes and laws in the U.S.A have made it impossible to allow me to ship raw hand split individual billets to Australia and New Zealand plus much of the world. Unless they are shipped on a pallet and wrapped in plastic shipping wrap. This is leaving the small luthier completely out of the picture and he is forsed to buy his or her wood from top manufactures. Who do nothing but saw tops for a profit. Or anotherwords middlemen. This very simple business money factor is cutting out a very important part of being a luthier. That of sawing your own tops and selecting the wood for sawing. No body wants each others wood eating bugs but surly there is a better way then to slice off individual luthiers that build from 1-30 guitars a year in their own shop. I look for the big guitar companys to start Unions and make you buy the products from them. Already the large guitar companys are saying it is best for them to have soul access to the Sitka Spruce in this Tongass National Forest where the pure white Sitka Spruce only grows. They have teamed up with Greenpeace and are howling beat hell for all the best Sitka Spruce because guess why. We are environmentaly friendly. What a crock of horse apples that is. When you fall a tree its dead and down. No matter who you are. Believe me I know. I have done it for over 60 years. Better band together people and buy this wood in bulk form with your buddies. Otherwise you will be losing forever your ability to be a luthier from the ground up and will put together a guitar like a puzzel bought and shipped to you in a box from the large guitar manufacture. John of www.alaskatonewood.com

Fumigation has went up from $37.50 a pallet to over $600 in just two years. Think about it with the dwindling supply of raw timber available to us all.

Hesh1956 · Post by **Hesh1956** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:59 am

I fumigate my own stash daily and it costs me nothing to do. My dog tends to leave the area but you can't have everything......

Welcome to the ANZLF John.

sebastiaan56 · Post by **sebastiaan56** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 11:54 am

Hi John and welcome,

I agree with you about the liason between Greenpeace and large industry. Im a small printer and I see the effects of these @rseholes squeezing the little guy regularly. I now regret the donations Ive made to them over many years. But I also support Aussie quarantine. I assume our law treats billets as unprocessed and sawn timber as processed.....

I concur with Hesh "think global, stink local". Ask my poor son who just followed me for a 25k bike ride.

Dominic · Post by **Dominic** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 12:23 pm

If we can get Hesh's um er ... gas, approved by the EPA we could be in back in business. We just send any wood via Hesh's place for a few days with a complimentary tin of baked beans to kick things off. Just feel sorry for the dog though.

Dom

kiwigeo · Post by **kiwigeo** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 12:41 pm

How many countries fumigate material going OUT of the country. Seems a bit pointless if you ask me as most countries will fumigate unprocessed wood coming IN to the country.

Doesnt seem very consistant that they get all concerned about exporting nasty wood eating bugs to other countries but there arent any restrictions on exporting other nasties like Paris Hilton and reality TV shows.

Welcome to the forum John.

Cheers Martin

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 6:02 pm

Welcome to the forum John.

I had a look at your web site when you first registered and before this post. I was somewhat surprised at your selling billets as this seems to be almost tabu now, I assume for the reasons that you stated.

I originate from the Canadian West Coast and have spent heaps of time cutting Western Red Cedar and Sitka Spruce billets. Most people have no idea how low impact and environmentally friendly this type of timber harvesting is to the forest. I still have several mates that work in this field, who are facing an exponentially increasing up hill battle against the Greenies political agenda, when they should be on the same side.

Where is it going to end? I think it will be with the ones with the deepest pockets and the most media leverage will end up winning the hearts and minds of the public and politicians. It will have very little to do with the reality of sustainable forest practices, or ecological protection. It will have much more to do with, politicians, NGO's and corporations keeping themselves in the game and at the top of the food chain.

So how do we get a few cords of billets landed in OZ?

Dominic · Post by **Dominic** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 6:15 pm

Allen wrote:
So how do we get a few cords of billets landed in OZ?

This had also occured to me. Wouldn't it be nice to have some billets stashed under the house. I wonder how much it would cost to get a pallet shipped?

Dom

Paul B · Post by **Paul B** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 7:48 pm

Right on Allen.

kiwigeo · Post by **kiwigeo** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 7:55 pm

Allen wrote:
So how do we get a few cords of billets landed in OZ?

I imagine Shane N would be able to help out.

joel · Post by **joel** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 5:26 pm

I was thinking the same thing Allen and Dominic. A billet or three stashed away for the future would be a nice idea.

graham mcdonald · Post by **graham mcdonald** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:57 am

A few questions have been raised here.

Is it still possible to simply put a billet of spruce in the mail and post it here? I certainly did it with the bits I bought at the GAL last month, and it arrived with no problems. In theory it should have been inspected by quarantine/customs for borers and such, but most posted packages are not. Borer seems to be the main concern of quarantine, as I have brought a quite large billet of Sitka in (taking up most of my suitcase!) four years ago, and the only concern was that it might contain borers. A simple inspection showed that it didn't, but that would not be as practical with a pallet load.

There seems to be some interest in getting a shipment/pallet load of split billets. It might be worth exploring what that might cost - cost of the timber, shipping by sea, splitting up and posting the individual blocks once they get here and whatever bureaucratic hoops that would have to be overcome at both ends. This sounds like it might be fumigation in Alaska and customs clearance at this end, which would involve a customs agent. I was once sent some wood from the US which contained a 'phytosantitary' certificate (I might have spelt that wrong) which cleared it of any nasties, and I suppose that is what the fumigation gets you. From talking to people who do import large amounts of stuff, customs agents are not cheap

Any thoughts..

graham

sebastiaan56 · Post by **sebastiaan56** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 6:18 am

Im not sure how the regs work but would expect Aus quarantine to be the issue. If we were to do it it would be great / almost mandatory to have a tame forwarder.

The thought of some billets stashed away is appealing, particularly for the bits like headblocks and bracing but also as part of the super fund...... But then we havent heard from John since the thread started... or Shane.....

Bob Connor · Post by **Bob Connor** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 7:21 am

Tim is keeping in touch with Shane about this.

Also not a good idea to keep your billets in log form.

Re-saw them asap.

Kim · Post by **Kim** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 7:22 am

Regardless of where you buy your spruce from, in bolt form this would be green soft wood coming from a very cold place to a very hot DRY place. I don't think it would be advisable to be stashing bolts, in fact end checking and mold damage would be a huge risk just in transit from Alaska and you would need to expect an adverse effect on the over-all % of recovery.

With bolts, you really do not want to be counting your chickens before they hatch, you just don't know what your getting until it falls from the saw. Also, to minimise loss, you would need to be resaw ASAP once the wood landed.

(I will need to find that camera Bob so you can see what I am typing

)

Cheers

Kim

jeffhigh · Post by **jeffhigh** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 10:25 am

With the cost of freight the way it is, I cannot see it being worth importing raw biletts.
By the time you reswed to tops and rejected/ trimmed you would probably have lost half the weight at least.
I would rather pay the guys at the source for their expertise in resawing.

Larry Davis · Post by **Larry Davis** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 11:54 am

Kim has made some valid points of concern regarding mold. While stretch wrapping wet hardwood can create surface mold doing so with wet softwood sappy stuff can cause mold to penetrate fairly deep with stain. That's a serious risk to consider.

The true value of quality instrument wood starts way before wood hits the resaw for final conversion to sets. Timbers, logs and bolts have great value in them because of the investment in establishing purchasing contacts, learned skill in grading or selecting raw wood to reduce high risk purchases, initial milling and discarding waste. Once a spruce, cedar or redwood chunk gets trimmed into a low risk bolt or billet it's near it's peak value. Only thing remaining is resawing, drying and marketing. High quality "rough" billets if purchased on the cheap will bring high risks so keep that in mind also. Good quality material is a supplier's capital business stock and he's not going to let it go cheap if it's of any value.

Back when I operated my retail store, customers would ask the price of instrument wood stored in the public area and my answer would always be, Let's see how many guitar sets are in that board and that's the price less $20 for saw time.

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 1:13 pm

I also don't see a lot of value in buying billets considering shipping costs these days, given how much is lost to resawing and sanding, and how much of an unknown factor there is. Saving $20-odd per top by doing it this way doesn't seem that logical unless you're building hundreds of guitars a year.

Not to start anything, but based on my experience with John / Alaskatonewood.com I would not recommend dealing with him. I won't post details publicly but PM/email me if you're interested.

Kim · Post by **Kim** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 4:26 pm

Indeed it would appear to be a very small world, exceptionally so for those of us involved in this craft.

Cheers

Kim

JohnM · Post by **JohnM** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:37 am

Hitler was right when he said that people if given a lie over and over will eventually believe the lie or a large part of it. You guys are no exception here. About 1% of my buyers are unhappy about one thing or another and always what they are unhappy about is behond my controls. Mr. Wilson is a good example of a Witch hunt which most of you are what I call pi--- as--- luthiers who build one and two guitars a year and then get on these luthier forums and cause nothing but trouble and talk like stipped as-- apes. (My dog fumigates my wood.) Come on guys. Get serious here. I have never made a sale that went bad somehow that I did not give the guy a half price free load of wood or some method to make him happy. Some people just like to witch hunt instead of talking about real problems we have in the tonewood and luthier business. Besides. Who said I was going to sale you guys wood in the first place? Its the small guys who grab onto that luthier title that as I said build a guitar now and then that cause all the hog wash on these forums. These forums are not about providing information to each other and making the business better for everybody. There about witch hunting. I sell 100's of orders every year and less then 1% of the people bitch. Less then 1% and you guys pick up on that less then 1% and run with it. No one is perfect in this business excepting the guy who can't make a guitar worth more then a $100 and he is the guy that talks the most Bull sh-- on these forums. Mr. Wilson ordered his wood when the U.S. Postal Service did away with ocean shipping and now only offer air freight to over seas markets and the price went up from $70 for his wood to well over $300 in one night. The Postal Service does not give notice for raising their prices. They just do it. I ask Mr. Wilson to send me more money and he told me to shove it. I think I sent him the wood anyway but no matter. That 1% is what you professionals talk about and follow. Do you build guitars and musical instruments or do you follow Hitler and the 1%. Get real Aussys. Americans believe in you people but this is bul- sh--. www.alaskatonewood.com

Larry Davis · Post by **Larry Davis** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 3:57 am

JohnM wrote:Hitler was right when he said that people if given a lie over and over will eventually believe the lie or a large part of it.

Nah, John that was George Bush, Karl Rove and Don Rumsfeld

Bob Connor · Post by **Bob Connor** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 11:45 am

I find your post quite strange John.

You have one individual who has posted about a negative business experience with you and you retort with an attack on small luthiers and Australians in general.

Hardly a way to endear yourself to a group of people who are (by and large) small luthiers from Australia and New Zealand.

Regards

Bob Connor
Forum Administrator

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:00 pm

Needless to say nothing will be accomplished if I respond to John's post.

After seeing that some fellow Aussie luthiers were looking at possibly ordering from Alaskatonewoods.com I felt it was my responsibility to add a cautionary note. If anyone wanted more information they could (and still can) contact me privately and make their decisions from there.

I could go much further with this but as far as I'm concerned this was over a year ago.

Dominic · Post by **Dominic** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:35 pm

And that other guy who said the customer is always right was right as well because it very easy to choose not to do business with someone.

OK, so we are back to doing group buys of pre-cut sets as the best/cheapest way to stock up with out importing a bunch of kindling and unmade sawdust.

Makes sense. So letâ€™s just save up and do a costing of a big order with surface shipping or what ever to see what we could get. It seems there is plenty of interest in something like this if this thread is anything to go by.
Dom

JohnM · Post by **JohnM** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 1:08 am

Post deleted by Hesh

graham mcdonald · Post by **graham mcdonald** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 8:12 am

C'mon Hesh, Let us see what he said. We are all big people and I promise not to be offended. javascript:emoticon(':)')

cheers

graham

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