The Chetboard

Everyone should pause and watch this video discussion by the owner of Taylor guitars.

He describes in sobering detail the situation with ebony in the forests and how it is harvested. It is a bit shocking to read of the waste of wood that goes on in that process. (sometimes as high as twenty trees cut before a “good one” is found. The others abandoned to rot.)

Take special note of how he describes how meticulously his company documents the woodcutter to workshop transfer of exotic wood. I think this may be an implication of what Gibson does not do in their processing.

In any case, ebony, black ebony anyway… will be gone in the relatively near future I think…

http://tinyurl.com/cx9xhua

Thanks Norm for posting that video. I found it to be quite informative. I have long wondered who was controling the supply from those countries and now I see that there is a way to manage at least the harvest Bob speaks of. My hat is off to him. Bob Taylor is always a class act as far as I can tell. A smart man.
Wes Southerland

" I think this may be an implication of what Gibson does not do in their processing."

LOL...just because they were raided (2x), there is the assumption that Gibson did something wrong? Norm, Gibson is accused of violating a law IN INDIA that requires the wood product be finished by workers in that country before it can be exported. (we let outsiders take US jobs w/o penalty...but raid, with automatic weapons, American companies that didn't allow an Indian to finish a piece of freakin wood, IN INDIA). Not a conservation law. Not a rain forest law, Not wasting wood....they were raided for violating an Indian labor law!

To date, criminal charges have NOT been filed against Gibson, yet the Government still holds Gibson’s 500K of property. Hopefully FOCUS will pass, which would strip language requiring Americans to comply with foreign laws and repeal criminal penalties.

This country has some jacked up priorities.