Don't forget, Valentines Day is Saturday! I'll bet your honey would love a new lathe tool!!

 

Anyway, I have been busy with the pulpit/lectern this past week so the lathe has been given a time out. 

 

Woodturning Online's newsletter arrived and it has a really interesting video link. Bob Taylor, of Taylor Guitars, talks about they have become stewards of the last source of Ebony. As woodworkers/woodturners we often don't realize how quickly some of the species are disappearing. The folks at Taylor Guitars "put their money where there mouth is" and stepped up to do something about the dwindling supply of Ebony.

 

 

There is a written tutorial from Steven Mittleman, in the same issue, for making a segmented travel mug.

 

 

The tutorial can be read here- http://www.revolutionary-turners.com/attach/SegCoffeeMug.pdf

The insert can be obtained from Woodcraft- 

http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/154508/16oz-Stainless-Steel-Travel-Mug-Turning-Kit-with-Screw-Top-Lid.aspx

 

 

The entire newsletter can be viewed at- http://www.woodturningonline.com/index.php

 

 

Safe Turning!

 

 

Awesome video Lew.

 

I wonder what anyone is doing about replanting Ebony? How long does it take a tree to grow to a harvest state?

 

I would think that not only using what they can but replanting would be a good idea.

I wasn't sure about the lifespan. Here's something I found http://www1.american.edu/ted/ebony.htm

In China and India it is not uncommon for entire pieces of furniture to be made entirely  from wood species ( like Ebony and rosewood) that we here in the west are telling ourselves are  endangered and rare and restricted.   Their attitude  toward our asceticism is "Great, more for me~!!"

 

Funny how it's  just like pretty much everything else  

We cut back  - - they increase.

 

They even use it for flooring

http://www.1topsupplier.com/buy-ebony/

 

 

Typical ad

"WANTED : Woods like Kosso, Bubinga, Teak, Kevazingo, Padauk
Dear Exporters, We have to import woods like kosso, bubinga, teak, kevazingo, padauk, padouk, paorosa, doussie, ebony wood. Quantity Required : 80-100 containers each month Shipping Terms : FOB and CIF Destination Port : Shanghai or Ningbo"

 

http://www.chinabusinessworld.com/Wood

 

 Want more?

http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/ebony-timber.html

 

http://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/13249147363cmy/product-detailcXIJatMCXDhe/China-Macassar-Ebony-Veneer-for-Stars-Hotel-Decorative-Black-Ebony-Wood-Veneer.html

 

http://www.globaltimber.org.uk/rosewood.htm

 

 

Russia?

http://mebel.sppok.ru/ebenovoe-derevo.html

The google translage

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fmebel.sppok.ru%2Febenovoe-derevo.html

 

Our loss is their gain.  And dutifully  we tell ourselves that we are conserving.  Meanwhile the rest of the world is laughing. 

Eat your Gruel Americans.  Ten Day old watery  Porridge is the breakfast of champeEEens now

Cannot disagree with anything you said. I guess folks just do what they gotta do....

In China and India it is not uncommon for entire pieces of furniture to be made entirely  from wood species ( like Ebony and rosewood) that we here in the west are telling ourselves are  endangered and rare and restricted.   Their attitude  toward our asceticism is "Great, more for me~!!"

 

Funny how it's  just like pretty much everything else  

We cut back  - - they increase.

 

They even use it for flooring

http://www.1topsupplier.com/buy-ebony/

 

 

Typical ad

"WANTED : Woods like Kosso, Bubinga, Teak, Kevazingo, Padauk

Dear Exporters, We have to import woods like kosso, bubinga, teak, kevazingo, padauk, padouk, paorosa, doussie, ebony wood. Quantity Required : 80-100 containers each month Shipping Terms : FOB and CIF Destination Port : Shanghai or Ningbo"

 

http://www.chinabusinessworld.com/Wood

 

 Want more?

http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/ebony-timber.html

 

http://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/13249147363cmy/product-detailcXIJatMCXDhe/China-Macassar-Ebony-Veneer-for-Stars-Hotel-Decorative-Black-Ebony-Wood-Veneer.html

 

http://www.globaltimber.org.uk/rosewood.htm

 

 

Russia?

http://mebel.sppok.ru/ebenovoe-derevo.html

The google translage

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fmebel.sppok.ru%2Febenovoe-derevo.html

 

Our loss is their gain.  And dutifully  we tell ourselves that we are conserving.  Meanwhile the rest of the world is laughing. 

Eat your Gruel Americans.  Ten Day old watery  Porridge is the breakfast of champeEEens now

 

 

WOW!

Yah and they use swat teams with machine guns and snarly toothed dogs to raid the Gibson factory over - - - - -  fretboards.

Well of course those sorry sons of  !#$#$$ had prior failed to donate to the correct political campaign, so  there was some justification - - - right?

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/26/does-that-gibson-guitar-raid-make-more-sense-now/

 

As I recall nothing came of the Gibson raid.   They dump[ed the whole place out cost Gibson un-knowable sums, turned over their filing cabinets dumped the inventory n the f floors and copied all their hard drives and financial records and spent maybe a few million to examine everything to produce evidence of not one violation.

I've never been much of a conspiracy theorist- except of course where Mulder and Scully were concerned. I used to subscribe to Halon's Razor, however in recent years, I am beginning to rethink my entire philosophy.

 conspiracy  [.....] I am beginning to rethink my entire philosophy.

 

 

 

Well what if there is no conspiracy?

 

I mean,  what if it is the disease of an infectious defective utopian ideology that when passed from one person  to another  tends to produce similar behaviors? 

What if this utopian ideology also includes a dark and self superior fascist  movement - - an "In Group" of elites who are in the loop - - in the know - morally correct - and seized  of superior knowledge according to their own intellectual superiors?

You know - - - the  exact sort of thing that one finds in every college across the nation.

 

The biggest fail point of all marxism/communism and the nonsense they call socialism trying to sell the former is the ontogeny of the philosophy.

 

Take capitalism as an  example of a system that hasn't got such a flawed and limited ontogeny.  No one  - no small group of arrogant SOBs  invented it.  IT evolved all as a result of humans interacting with each other on a planet of limited resources.  Joe-the-handle maker has handles.  He doesn't give them away willy nilly.  He trades (sells) them  to people who need handles.   Those people try to get as much for whatever they are handing to Joe as they can and Joe is trying to get as  dear a price as he can for his handles.

Maybe Joe knows a traveler who takes them far far away to where no one had figured out handles or lacks the lumber to trade them for something they have in plenty but which Joe and his people lack.

 

Whole nations have risen on these simple themes.

 

Compare that to Marxism/communism where some guy and his following of  self proclaimed know-it-alls  invent a system of human interaction from whole cloth which they then try to force upon others using any means of coercion they can.

 

How can some small band of  people have the magic elixir of success for everybody  (everybody)  - -  especially one that throws all of human social evolution aside?

I don't think they can, but they are arrogant and so full of themselves that they can easily  kill me to have their way.

Just like Mao and Stalin slaughtered millions and millions to have their way - - - but there was no conspiracy.  It was just people who bought into a fascist ideal hiding inside some utopian ideology and then taught it to others calling it enlightenment and  education.

 

Here in the USA they do it right out in the open using our tax dollars to do it in our universities and public schools.

I wondered why there were so few pieces of ebony being listed anymore, I guess this is why. It's a shame that some societies even in todays world just use something to the point that there is nothing left, then move on to the next best thing. Very sad.