Today Luthier George Thomas and I drove up the Skagit River to the Pacific Rim Tonewoods plant in Birdsview. It is always a delight to visit our friends there, but today was different. They have received an amazing amount of Koa logs from Maui. There is Koa everywhere you look. Take a look.
George, in awe, is photographing a stack of sawn planks sitting outside in the rain.
George, in awe, is photographing a stack of sawn planks sitting outside in the rain.
Wow!, the beauty of Koa is just staggering. This amazing wood will all be run through the dry kiln and sawn into instrument thickness to be sold to guitar and ukulele builders around the world.
The trees are pushed over rather than felled so that wood is not splintered and damaged in the fall. Then sawn at the roots so as not to waste any of tis precious wood. there is lots of rot in this over mature stand so they carefully must cut around the rot.
Does just the sight of it make you drool?, It does me.
I came home with enough to make a couple of tenors. Here is one of them. I will pair this back and sides with a Water tank Redwood soundboard and it ought to make a terrific Kasha tenor.
Here's a closeup of the figure in this interesting piece.
And then a set of rather plain Koa. We had a great morning visiting with our friends and seeing this fabulous tonewood factory.
