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12 years ago
raid on Gibson Guitar
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12 years ago
Hey Bas, Thanks for passing that along. This is the first time I ever read about any type of enforcement of protected woods. Does anyone have other articles about raids at other type of woodworking facilities (furniture makers for instance) where lumber was confiscated? Marc
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12 years ago
basilisk wrote the following:
I gotta ask. What does the type of wood for the fretboard have anything to do with the sound?
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12 years ago
Hey Will, I am not a musician but I experimented with making a cheap vibraphone a few years ago and the types of wood made a difference in sound. I don't know if that characteristic can be applied to string instruments but it exist in percussion types. Marc
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12 years ago
marc rosen wrote the following:
The fretboard doesn't produce sound, only the strings and the metal frets in the fretboard do.
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12 years ago
The sound is produced by the vibration of the strings enhanced and amplified by resonances in the body. The strings are coupled to the body at two locations - the bridge and the top of the fretboard.
The density of the fretboard wood has a direct relationship to the sound of the instrument.
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12 years ago
OK. thanks. I can appreciate that. I'm not a guitar player. I tried when young, but the callouses that I built up cracked and I bled all over the fretboard. It wasn't worth the pain.
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12 years ago
my understanding is that a fretboard should be dimensionally stable and resist wear. The wood should be of fairly uniform density, so that the strings will have the same response on each fret. a non-uniform fretboard (and neck) would have "live" and "dead" acoustic spots affecting sound quality. Ebony, rosewood and maple have usually been the woods of choice for those reasons. Ebony is much more expensive.
Mesquite might do very well functionally due to its exceptional hardness and dimensional stability. I imagine that the hardest part would be getting a large enough straight-grained piece. I found these, that I think are pretty cool:
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12 years ago
This link provided by Just Windering:
Interesting luthier.
-Zz
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12 years ago
Are you joking? Luthiers want to know whether the wood came off of the east or the west side of the tree. There are some banjo bridges being made out of wood salvaged from shipwrecks in Lake Superior that go for quite alot (don't have the figure off hand). No kidding.
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12 years ago
Violins don't have frets, but everything that is attached supposedly affects the way the instument vibrates, as well of course as things that aren't attached like a bow.
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12 years ago
That's a convenient point of view to have if you are trying to sell them.
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12 years ago
The harder the wood, the longer it will vibrate, meaning the longer it will sustain the sound.
Rosewood is used for marimba bars for that reason.
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12 years ago
lawbreakers, isn't it?
Muckin' Faroons.
Ayup, I believe we can prune about 75% of the agencies off the roles of the gov't and still be able (BETTER able) to protect our shores and (BETTER) feed, house, and educate our citizens. Cut the FAT!
-- Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens. -- Jimi Hendrix
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12 years ago
To be accurate, I provided this link:
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12 years ago
I saw another report claiming it was not the WOOD, per se, but the fact that the wood was not "finished" by union workers in India.
The feds are not saying - yet - just what their beef is, whether it's the wood itself or something else. The problem could be lack of the proper paperwork in the importation process. We don't know yet.
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12 years ago
It's even worse:
"[WASHINGTON] Today's uncovering of secret multi-agency program for shipping illegal Gibson guitars to Mexican drug cartels left red-faced officials of the U.S. Department of Justice scrambling for an explanation amid angry calls for a Congressional investigation...
"Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, Justice Department officials admitted that the guitars were part of a complicated sting program know as "Operation Fast and Fretless," ostensibly designed to stem traffic of illegal guitars and amplifiers between the U.S. and Mexico. The multi-agency program - involving Justice, ICE, TSA, EPA, IRS, FDA, Fish & Wildlife, USDA, and the Bureau of Whiskey, Groupies & Hotel Rooms - reportedly encourage border area pawn shops to sell the guitars to known drug kingpins."
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12 years ago
There are whole guitars being made of wood that has been submerged in swamps for thousands of years.
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12 years ago
Please document that whether or not wood workers in India belong to a union has anything to do with this matter. At least you didn't repeat the claim being made on the right-wing of the blogoshpere that the real reason Gibson was raided is because the company's CEO gave $3,500 to Republican candidates in the last election.
In this case that is apparently the basis of the action, that Indian law requires this wood to be finished there and not exported raw. Allegedly (as the popular saying goes) Gibson's paperwork was somewhat less than accurate, i.e. describing raw wood as finished pieces to get around the law. In a previous case the feds apparently tracked a shipment of allegedly illegally harvested wood from Madagascar through an intermediary to Gibson and that case is the subject of a lawsuit working its way through the courts.
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12 years ago
same) also suspected as one of the reasons for the tone of the early
18th century violin makers of the area, a la Stradivarius?