Slicing Ebony & Using Controlled Woods

This morning, one of my jobs was to "very carefully" slice up some ebony. The reason to be extra careful is that ebony is very expensive. The lumber we buy is usually sold by the "board foot". One board foot is 144 cubic inches of wood - picture a piece 12" x 12" x 1". For very rough numbers, woods like ash, hickory and maple are pretty inexpensive at around $3 per board foot, walnut and cherry are about twice that, and ebony... around 50 times that!

Ebony is not in danger of going extinct, but it is a controlled wood. Madagascar (the country that exports a lot of the ebony we use) has placed ebony on a protected list which basically just means that you need to document where the ebony comes from. This is usually done to prevent over harvesting. Ebony is very slow growing (which is what gives it such nice tight grain) and is being used faster than new trees can be grown to harvesting size.

I will only use the black portions of this piece of ebony, but here you can see the heartwood is brown, while the rest of the wood is black.

Another one of our favorite woods to use on dulcimers is Honduras mahogany. Honduras mahogany was protected from over harvesting 20 years ago and is still a controlled lumber. The lumber we get comes exclusively from plantations and is fully sustainable.

The American hardwoods that we use for most of our instruments are typically relatively young trees - less than 50 years old - and none of them are in danger from over harvesting. One of the only "local" trees that has real environmental concerns is Sitka spruce. Sitka spruce is a slow growing tree found in the rain forests of the pacific northwest (primarily Alaska). Because it is slow growing, the lumber is primarily collected from downed trees or young trees rather than the original old growth trees. You can easily tell the difference between the old growth and new growth lumber by the density of the growth rings.

Over time, different species come and go on the protected lists. We won't use Asian mahogany or Brazilian rosewood at all as those are highly protected woods. Koa went through a period of danger but is now being grown sustainably. We do pay attention to where the wood we use comes from and how it is harvested - that is the only way the woods we love will continue to be available going forward.