“The Tree” article in Smithsonian

[CoolerKing]

Originally Posted by jt1

I find it heartening that of the original 12,000 board feet that the tree yielded, only 17,000 board feet have been used to build musical instruments.

Rotfl! Like the loaves and the fishes. Hope you are healing up!

[FormerFoodie]

Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed the article and like always, enjoyed the follow-up comments even more!

I've resigned myself to not owning a Kim Walker and a guitar from the Tree is in the same vein. They are like ghost orchids for me...Something that I'll never have. And that's OK!

[BBWW]

I have gotten a lot of grief from friends who read the article and I'm now known as an "amateur" guitar player. :-)

[Bruce Sexauer]

I was literally in the room when the Tree showed up at Handloggers Hardwoods. At that time I was tight with Tim Mahoney (rip) and built him some furniture and cabinet work in his home, as well as a couple of musical instruments. At the time that the Tree first arrived, he was selling it for $15 a board foot, somewhat less than the Smithsonian article says. Regular Honduran Mahogany was $3.30 a foot at the time, and the D. tucurensis I bought from him then and am still building with cost $7 a foot, the Tree seemed quite dear to me.

At the time I had no interest in building guitars with it as virtually all of it that I saw was flat sawn, which is what best reveals the prized figure. As it turns out there was a bit of quartered material in the mix, and years later I did acquire some, building my first tree guitar from it about 5 years ago at this point. For the reasons I avoided it initially, I was quite correct, as it is incredibly difficult to build with, being silly fragile, especially if one builds as delicately as I do. I have build 4 instruments from it now, and two of them have master grade repair incorporated due to broken sides. The good news is that properly repaired with HHG, the glue lines are virtually undetectable. I have one more set on hand, but it'll be okay with me if I never use it.

[Pura Vida]

That was an enjoyable read. Thanks for sharing!

[riorider]

I've been lucky (and determined!) enough to have 4 'tree' guitars made for me - 3 by Mike Baranik and 1 by Tim McKnight. I would tend to agree with the mixed "response" - for me the striking appearance was the first draw, but I believe I can distinguish some features of the tonality from other guitar sets.

Nice article, and happy to have found an April 2022 issue on ebay to add to my documentation stash!

Phil

[Sticky_fingers]

Originally Posted by Dustinfurlow

I'd never had the chance to read this until now. Biggest takeaways for me were discovering Slash's real name (who would've thought his mama didn't name him that...) and that I have doubts Andy owns a Tree guitar because if so it would've been made by Michael Greenfield and there would've been boatloads of press about it. Hmm.

Anyway, was definitely fun delivering this to Jared in Winchester with Matt. Him, his folks and fellow shopmates were all smiles, as you might imagine. Definitely one of the more interesting builds I've seen in recent years, and not at all what you'd expect an all-mahogany guitar to sound like. Matt actually co-developed the top bracing with Reuben and the result was definitely unique to the ears.

MAGA

Edit: Did that article just refer to Michael Watts as a virtuoso guitar player? Right...

[jmagill]

Originally Posted by Sticky_fingers

MAGA

What's with the 'MAGA' reference?

[joe white]

Originally Posted by jmagill

What's with the 'MAGA' reference?

"made a guitar again "

[Sticky_fingers]

Originally Posted by jmagill

What's with the 'MAGA' reference?

Looking a the pictures… Well I won’t dive further into this.

[Andy B]

Originally Posted by morgankelsey

There's an old timer near me who has over 100 board feet of the tree in his backyard shed - no kidding he bought it 40 years ago and sat on it.

Personally I'm not a fan of "wood marketing stories", because I think they are kind of disrespectful to trees. We don't really understand tree intelligence, and impose our human perspective in a pretty arrogant manner. Did tunnel 13 redwood enjoy being made into a railroad passage? A good wood marketing story from a tree's perspective would be something along the lines of, "I lived for 2000 years and never saw a human, not ever". The Tree, sadly, likely suffered from some kind of bizarre disease, and then the poor being was left to rot in a ravine for 20 years - it's really not that appealing to me as a lover of botanical giants.

That said if anyone wants a tree guitar I can hand select primo billets.

The chapter in Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charlie” about the magnificent Redwoods is the best piece of writing I’ve seen about this kind of thing.
Mention of these trees being around at the time of a political assassination in Jerusalem 2000 years ago.

[BBWW]

Originally Posted by morgankelsey

There's an old timer near me who has over 100 board feet of the tree in his backyard shed - no kidding he bought it 40 years ago and sat on it.

I've been in that shed. Last time I was there he bought a new truck when I left!