”Getting the “bla bla” down first”

Over 3000 years ago, a seedling took root in the dark leech-ridden forests of south west Tasmania.
As it grew, the world witnessed the birth of Christianity, the signing of the Magna Carta, the Industrial Revolution, the discovery of the New World and assorted plagues, wars and natural disasters. That seedling is today an almost fully grown member of one of the world’s longest living species - the Huon Pine.
Its extraordinary longevity is just one of the many qualities of the Huon Pine. The rare wood contains an oil that prevents it from rotting - it is seemingly indestructible. It is favoured by artists and fine furniture makers and its lightness, strength and close grain make it the “holy grail” of boat-building timber.
Huon Pine - Lagarostrobos franklinii, (formerly. Dacrydium franklinii) is only found in Tasmania Australia.

With unique qualities of durability, longevity, amazing grains, rich golden hues that darken with age and fine texture, Huon Pine is a truly beautiful softwood timber, deep in character with exquisite aroma. Huon Pine is extremely slow growing with growth rates averaging a mere 1mm per year. Trees may attain heights of over 40 metres and are amongst the longest living organisms on the earth, they often live in excess of 2000 years and have been known to reach 3,000 years. A tree merely 20 cm in diameter could be as much as 500 years old.

The ‘Piners’, early timber getters, searched the inhospitable wilderness of Tasmania's West Coast to cut and haul out Huon Pine logs. The timber was used for everything where durability and ease of working was required; in furniture and tables, in washtubs and ships and in machinery and patterns for casting. Remaining trees are found in the western and south-western parts of the state, growing along river banks, lake shores and swampy localities in mixed formations.

Huon Pine derives its name from the stands which once occurred along the Huon River. The western and south-western Huon Pine stands are now protected and what timber is available comes from logs salvaged from rivers and areas flooded by hydro electric schemes or logs that are dead fallen. This above personalised panorama piece from the Gordon River Dam contains evidence of being salvaged as parts contain an additional rich orange tannin stain which is drawn into the timber as it lays for years in the water.

Huon Pine is the prince of Tasmanian timbers, the richness of its golden colour and features such as ‘birds eye’ and ‘fiddleback’, make it one of the world's most desirable furniture and veneering timbers. Its durability and workability make it one of the best boat-building timbers known. The wood contains a natural preserving oil with an unmistakable perfume which is also a natural insect repelant, its fine and even grain makes the wood exceptionally pleasant to work with hand tools.

true investment in a piece that is already of great age. As the limited existing sources of flooded and dead fallen Huon Pine diminish, due to its extreme slow growth and protected status, Huon Pine can only become more difficult to obtain and thus, even rarer.

The picture.You get it right?

So now and again something catches your eye and you take another wee peak onto the virtual paper screen that flickers and you mark it down as something to look at before the auction is over. Your expecting the item to go for a higher price than the asking price and at the moment the piggy bank is sliced and in the frying pan.
So, after 7 days you see nobody has made a bid and your curious.
Then , at the same time your selling a 197X Yamaha TZ500/700 motorcycle hub and rim and you guessed it, the same buyer owns what you’ve been looking at.

So, by now you wanna know whats the guts with whats been looked at.

No surprise really, the song remains the same just now.

Life at 41 is about tone and sustain and things of beauty...oh, and of course that have a jackplug and pups that can be plugged in so one can actually use both eyes and ears on that tone and sustain as well as the ever so important resonance.
Yep...another guitar. You see, unlike Joe normal boring person I only have the bare essentials in my living room and as opposed to filling it with ikea cardboard I'm going wall to wall woods and steel strings. Each corner adorned with a different story, different year, different sound. At the moment we have two Gibsons, a fender and a univox. And soon to join the guitar which a certain luthier decided to build and which is a one off...for many reasons, as the wood only exists on one island in the world and is not allowed to be chopped down, the man in question obvioulsy ended up with a chunk and made an exact copy of an early 60's fender Stratocaster body.As his work was guitars, he obviously had bits and bobs sitting around, and to the one off body he added a 1963 pre cbs maple neck as well as certain other items from an L series strat.