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estebanana -> RE: Pulsation (Jul. 14 2025 0:31:27)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
Turns out there was a thread about Cedro del Líbano here on the Foro back in 2016.
http://www.foroflamenco.com/tm.asp?m=296870&appid=&p=&mpage=1&key=&tmode=&smode=&s=#296870
RNJ
It appears Ramzi is displeased.
The fellow at the end states that C. Lebani is stiffer than Mediterranean cypress, that’s not really true. All these woods have a general range of stiffness, but stiffness both along the grain and across the grain can vary substantially according to the conditions it grows in and the genetic background of specific groves of trees. The range of C. Lebani is up into Turkey, where there’s more of it growing wild. I’m not an expert on this, but I understand there’s a reforesting project in actual Lebanese territory and you’re not supposed to rely on this as a commercially available species. There are also vast tracts on C. Lebani Forest which is set aside as tree sanctuary land.
In the accounts of late dynastic Egypt C. Lebani was traded along the Turkish coast, Cyprus ( ironically named) on down in the growing range of the tree. The large boats in Egypt that were large enough to require wood hulls, not simple reed hulls, were almost exclusively made with imported timber.
There were no timber forests in lower Egypt ( the half nearest the sea - the upper Nile in Nubia, the lower Alexandria) by the late dynasties ship building was pretty sophisticated and required a lot of timber. This was a major reason for Egyptian conquest to the north, they were constantly engaged in trade, treaties and wars over goods and the paths through various lands to get the goods. Egypt by comparison had cotton and fine linen. All this resulted in the deforestation of these forests north of Egypt even before the last dynasty of Macedonian generals ruled Egypt. Did you know that there were seven rulers in Egypt all named Cleopatra? The last one was Cleopatra the 7th.
See the reason wood was important to Egypt is that it was a big country with a central river. In order for Egyptian rulers to control and administrate the entire country fast moving boats were needed to move up and down the Nile to keep situations in control. Egypt was subject to the same kinds of conflicts and break away groups as other countries, but a big reason ancient Egypt was able to have a more of less culture of continuity for 3000 years is due to the navigation of the Nile River and the reliability of the river to flood once a year. The Nile was also bedded in a slightly different place 4000 years ago when the pyramids were built ( that’s a 2000 year long duration of pyramid and monument construction) and the river was used for floating giant obelisks and stone blocks to build temples and other structures. Vast amounts of wood was needed for this kind of construction to make barges and cranes. Whole trees must have been rafted across the sea and into the Nile Delta ports to be moved later into the temple areas like Luxor. The pyramids at Giza sucked up not only mega tons of stone, but timber and raw trees for that massive construction site.
The river was diverted into a series of man made channels around the famous Sphinx and up to the pyramids in order to barge in the blocks used to make the pyramids. Later the river changed course to its modern path and the channels eventually were back filled by human and natural processes. All of this required a steady flow of timber from the north over the length of time it took to build one of those pointy skyscrapers, which was about 20 to 25 years.
Anyway, yeah, C. Libani - not superior to Cypress, not a wood for making tops. Not even common with guitar makers, but if a guy picked up some boards of C. Libani and had them sliced up, why not? But this is not some magic bullet wood, it’s not sensational. Any wood makes nice guitars if you understand how to use it, hell even papier mache’ makes an ok guitar.
The Great Guitar Whisperer laid some info on me several months ago regarding the famous papier mache guitar. In the opinion of TGGW the Torres guitar might not have been a one off to prove that back & sides wood doesn’t matter and that the top wood is crucial, may not be the actual reason Tony constructed it. It could even be that AT was thinking or experimenting with mass production techniques.
Once a year in an urban parkland in northen Illinois a great guitar shaped pumpkin rises into the air at night above the tree tops in the park and casts aspersions on all the bad little guitar makers, admonishing them to work harder and talk less ****. But for the good guitar makers The Great Guitar Whisperer throws handfuls of candy with little hand written notes full of wisdom.
Be good.
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