b'save endangered species, but some of the legislationGermany, it arrived in packing cases made from seems to me to do more harm than good. the reject pieces, but during the difficult years, the Eventually, the lack of materials led me to buy mytimber I was offered was no better than the packing own massive resaw and start to convert Rosewoodcases had been a year or two before. The choice and logs and big beams of Cedar and Spruce. I foundsheer volume of material available now is huge, that handling, choosing and cutting the raw timbersimply because there are so many makers wanting became the fun part of the job, but it did leadto buy it, and therefore lots of dealers seeking it out to spreading myself, and my finances rather toofor sale. The highest quality is still available but at thinly. I dont think anyone in the UK had trieda much higher price, I deal with that by buying as to cut timber for acoustic guitars before, and themuch as I can afford and selling what I dont want. amount of wood that I eventually put on the marketI now have a lot of wood and dont really need to helped start some of todays dealers and makers.buy more, but it is a great excuse for holidays in foreign parts, besides which, I keep hearing voices - There are definitely quite a lot of problemsbuy wood, buy wood. Okay, okay. My name is Roger concerning the supply of rare hardwood timberand I am a woodoholic.worldwide, but it isnt all bad news. One of theThe politics of wood regulation has always been specialist sawmills in Cameroon has recently beenconfused and often counterproductive. At one time bought out and reorganised so that the overall yieldit was possible to use windfall Sequoia trees, just from the local Ebony trees has improved by 800%.one would keep many guitar makers busy for years There is some hope! and it would relieve the pressure on other species. Most people know that quality timber is becomingHowever, someone then decided it was essential to more difficult to find, but in fact for small-scaleleave every fallen tree to rot away rather than use it makers, the situation today is wonderful comparedto make beautiful music, so we could no longer use to the 1970s. No tonewood was coming fromthat timber. Then some enterprising souls managed North or South America, and at one time, theto salvage very old Sequoia from the bottom of majority of quality timber in Europe was beingrivers, and it became available again. Now that shipped to Japan. When I first bought spruce fromtrade is stopped because it disturbs the fish. For Mike HardingThe original, the one and only Rochdale Cowboy, Mike was a regular visitor to my workshop and commissioned several brand new models. I know he had the first Goodfellow, but I cant remember the background to it. I do remember that he asked me for a teardrop shaped bouzouki, which became the Octavius, although after I had made it I began to suspect that he hadnt explained what he wanted very well. He still played it on the Fylde Album though, along with guitar, acoustic bass, mandolin, bodhran, linoleum, hopscotch and fool. I helped Bill Leader mix it all and I tried to wind up the bass until the windows shook.For many years, Mike was the ambassador for Folk Music at the BBC and introduced many young artists who went on to become my customers. He seems to have followed me from Lancashire, as he now has property in Penrith. At last I have my own stalker.39'