Does anyone have any leads on tonewood suppliers in Costa Rica?

[gerberguitars]

I know this is a total shot in the dark, but I'm going to be on vacation in Costa Rica next week, and I thought it would be fun if I could find some nice tonewood to look at....and buy. So the question is, does anyone have experience with shopping in Costa Rica? Surely there is product there, but the trick would be knowing where to look. Anyone have any suggestions or leads?

[Bruce Sexauer]

I'd bet against finding Tonewood suppliers, per se, but you never know. What I'd do, because it has worked for me before, is look in the local lumber yards to see what they have. You may find what you can use there, but if not, arm yourself with the local name (likely to be unlike what we'd call it) and talk to indigenous people who know where old trees are that you can actually get ahold of. Then you can arrange for an interpreter, transportation, someone with a chainsaw (or?), and then you have to be the quality controller and direct the show as it will all be a foreign concept to the crew. I doubt you could pull this off in a week, it takes me that long just to get comfortable in another culture, and then it is more like three weeks to get anything done.

Doing something like this can prove to be one of the great adventures of your life, several of these kinds of things have been for me.

[tadol]

I'd also see if there is a local woodworkers group you can connect with - someone may have some stock in a rack in their shop that they'd be willing to sell you. Or at least you might make a connection that could be useful when you get back home. Past experience has been that you usually don't find any great deals, but you may get some interesting off-cuts and some good stories, and make a friend -

[gerberguitars]

Originally Posted by Bruce Sexauer

I'd bet against finding Tonewood suppliers, per se, but you never know. What I'd do, because it has worked for me before, is look in the local lumber yards to see what they have. You may find what you can use there, but if not, arm yourself with the local name (likely to be unlike what we'd call it) and talk to indigenous people who know where old trees are that you can actually get ahold of. Then you can arrange for an interpreter, transportation, someone with a chainsaw (or?), and then you have to be the quality controller and direct the show as it will all be a foreign concept to the crew. I doubt you could pull this off in a week, it takes me that long just to get comfortable in another culture, and then it is more like three weeks to get anything done.

Doing something like this can prove to be one of the great adventures of your life, several of these kinds of things have been for me.

Thanks for the advice Bruce. It sure would be an adventure to go with the purpose of sourcing a whole tree or two. Someday I would love to do that. The big question for me, is once the tree is cut and processed, what's the best way to get it stateside? What are the legal issues to deal with?

For the purpose of this trip, I had in mind what you suggested. I might try and find a lumber yard or two while I'm in San Jose, the capitol. If I'm feeling adventurous, maybe I'll ask a few locals if they know anything about rosewood and see what they say.

[gerberguitars]

Originally Posted by tadol

I'd also see if there is a local woodworkers group you can connect with - someone may have some stock in a rack in their shop that they'd be willing to sell you. Or at least you might make a connection that could be useful when you get back home. Past experience has been that you usually don't find any great deals, but you may get some interesting off-cuts and some good stories, and make a friend -

I like this idea. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Tim McKnight]

This might be a place to start?

http://millworkcostarica.com/contact-us/



There is a search function on this forum:
http://www.expatexchange.com/expat/i...lat&order=DESC


Looks like CR might be plagued with permits, local laws, etc...

[redir]

Call me in about 20 years and my Cocobolo and Mahogany trees will be ready for harvest

But I don't know of any luthier suppliers. I do own several hundred trees though and I know the plantation owner and have talked to him about harvesting for guitars but again it will be in the distant future. You might also search for marine supply shops.

A few years ago in San Jose I went into a music store and it was your typical shop with guitars, drums, strings and things except that they had under a glass case a bunch of rosettes. I just had to buy a few because they were so nice.

[Tony Vines]

Hey Ryan, Talk to Tim and Ed at Ameritage Cases. Chances are that they may know some locals that have a nice collection...just make sure it is legal to transport across the border!

[gerberguitars]

Well, our family made it back to Ohio from our vacation in Jaco, Costa Rica, albeit without any wood. I'm still uncertain if it would have been possible to pass a piece of unprocessed wood through customs, and a little more research would have been necessary to even give it a shot. I didn't find anything worth the risk anyways.

However, that doesn't mean that I didn't at least have a little adventure in the search for some Cocobolo.

One day while the kiddos were napping, I decided to get in a cab and head for a "madera maravillosas workshop" that we had passed on our way to a local hotel for a sunset viewing and dinner. Quick advertisement for them, because I was blown away by how stunning this place was. http://www.hotelvillacaletas.com/.

I got in the cab, and asked to be taken to said location. I told him what I was looking for, and that I build guitars. He quickly responded by saying that the place I wanted to go only sold the same junk wooden touristy stuff that all the other stores sold, and it wasn't worth the trip. BUT...he said he had a family farm with 300 acres of DRY climate forest, full of cocobolo and mahogany trees. Trouble was, it was 4 hours away, and I didn't have the time to take the road trip.

He made a few more phone calls to family members who lived on the farm, and concluded that the one cocobolo tree that had most recently been cut and set out to dry had already been sold. They sell trees from time to time only to people they know, and haven't done any exporting up to this point. That didn't dissuade him though from giving me a fair price on a tree and the promise that he has a friend who would be in the know about exporting, laws, fees, etc.

I did some reading during the week on the state of the exotic hardwood export business in Costa Rica, and it doesn't sound like it would be easy to do things the right way. The national government only issues a small number of permits to harvest cocobolo per year. Outside of that, the majority of what actually leaves the country is done so illegally by so-called organized crime groups, by way of middle of the night harvesting, bribes, false documents, and taking advantage of the impoverished local famers who can't pass up the $400 for a tree. I wonder how much of the product in the luthier supply chain is exported in this way? My limited reading, research, and intuition suggests that it would be a discouragingly high percentage.

In spite of the possible roadblocks, I'm going to at least follow up with the cab driver, and do a little more research. If the right partner came along to join me in the journey, that could be fun too.