- Joined
- Dec 27, 2013
- Messages
- 2,664
Hey guys, I do apologize if this post seems a little rambly, but i figure a bunch of old willy knifemakers who still use forums are just the right people to listen to a ramble, and ill do my best to include good information along with it.
As basically all of you should know by now, ive been in exotic wood sourcing, selling and supply for nearing on a decade now. From collecting scraps from my job at a wood shop to running a full site with my own warehouse shop space, its been a lot.
If you have been looking carefully, you may have also noticed changes in where my wood comes from.
Most of my wood supply started out being Brazillian, things like mango, ipe burl, spalted jatoba and the like. That suppliers quality was shaky at the best of times, and I went through a phase meandering around the world, sourcing woods from Australia and Indonesia and Africa, before i began to focus in more on S.E asia.
Simply put, history and geopolitcs plays a huge role in where the woods you use every day come from.
Think about the exotic woods you can easily find at any well stocked wood shop.
I imagine you can find Purple heart, Paduak, mahogany, wenge, probably Ipe for decking, maybe cocobolo and ebony if the store is particularly well stocked.
You may have noticed something about those woods, they all originate either in south america or in Africa. There are relatively few S.E asian woods in the western markets. Those that you can find are mostly amboyna, makassar ebony and others that all originate from Indonesia. Look around facebook wood selling groups and you will find tons of small sellers are varying qualities offering indonesian woods, but again, minimal sources from mainland S.E asia.
The reason for this is something i have been learning over the last two or so years, since I went full time and began to learn more about it.
Simply put, the wood markets are formed by history. South america has always been a timber exporter, traditonally to spain, but in the last hundred years mostly to the U.S. There are large timber cutting and drying industries staffed by english speaking sales people throughout Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua and the rest of central and south america, forming a good chain of sales to the English speaking markets. In Africa it is much the same, long standing colonial links mean wenge, african mahogany, ebony and paduak are often and relativly easily sold to the west. Indonesia as well as the strongest links of any S.E asian nation to western trade through its many massive ports and long history of dutch colonization.
But the mainland focuses on a different market, on China.
The wood economy of S.E asia works by the poorer nations of Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and rural malaysia cutting logs, mostly out in the jungle with chainsaws or other gas powered tools, the logs are then hauled mostly overland to the vietnamese border, where more established mills saw the wood, and it is then sent mostly to the city of Hanoi, where both Chinese furniture makers from southern China, and the robust furniture industry of Vietnam purchase it, mostly for internal use or for export to China.
The S.E asian woods that americans see are truly the dregs. what is left after this well established economy has picked the best material for internal use.
But over the last year, i have been able to insert myself between the Vietnamese mills and the wholesale market, in part through my girlfriends family who runs furniture making in Southern China, and partly through my reputation for paying high prices and fair dealings with wood sellers the world over. And the quality of woods is truely second to none. Amboyna burls from Cambodia, Black and white ebony from Laos, Satinwood from Myanmar, and Sandalwood burls from Malaysia.
And now, im actually at the edge of trying to expand my business. As i said before, im a young guy who loves doing this, and i recently was given the opportunity to get in some massive slabs of one of the rarest, most beautifully figured woods ive ever seen, Afzelia Xylay. I have my best contact in the region flying out to the jungle to examine some huge slabs of fully figured xylay, found funding for a loan to order it, and if all goes well this would be my first toe dip into the big leagues of wood supply. All the money Greenberg Woods operates on originated with my Bar Mitzvah money, and the money I saved working at the woodshop in Highschool. All the rest of the money has been the profits earned from sales being reinvested.
I hope this also gives you guys a peak into the work behind sourcing wood. I wish it were as easy as some of my louder buyers say of just popping into the local woodshop, buying some big burls and tripling the list price before rolling around in the ill gotten wealth of wood, but start to finish, this is a lot of work.
I do hope this wasnt too odd of a post, but I also wanted to say thank you to this forum. Its how i got started, its where i learned the culture of knife making, and its where i got my drive to both improve and share the knowledge ive obtained in my own adventures in this field.
Thanks guys.
Ben Greenberg
Greenberg Woods
As basically all of you should know by now, ive been in exotic wood sourcing, selling and supply for nearing on a decade now. From collecting scraps from my job at a wood shop to running a full site with my own warehouse shop space, its been a lot.
If you have been looking carefully, you may have also noticed changes in where my wood comes from.
Most of my wood supply started out being Brazillian, things like mango, ipe burl, spalted jatoba and the like. That suppliers quality was shaky at the best of times, and I went through a phase meandering around the world, sourcing woods from Australia and Indonesia and Africa, before i began to focus in more on S.E asia.
Simply put, history and geopolitcs plays a huge role in where the woods you use every day come from.
Think about the exotic woods you can easily find at any well stocked wood shop.
I imagine you can find Purple heart, Paduak, mahogany, wenge, probably Ipe for decking, maybe cocobolo and ebony if the store is particularly well stocked.
You may have noticed something about those woods, they all originate either in south america or in Africa. There are relatively few S.E asian woods in the western markets. Those that you can find are mostly amboyna, makassar ebony and others that all originate from Indonesia. Look around facebook wood selling groups and you will find tons of small sellers are varying qualities offering indonesian woods, but again, minimal sources from mainland S.E asia.
The reason for this is something i have been learning over the last two or so years, since I went full time and began to learn more about it.
Simply put, the wood markets are formed by history. South america has always been a timber exporter, traditonally to spain, but in the last hundred years mostly to the U.S. There are large timber cutting and drying industries staffed by english speaking sales people throughout Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua and the rest of central and south america, forming a good chain of sales to the English speaking markets. In Africa it is much the same, long standing colonial links mean wenge, african mahogany, ebony and paduak are often and relativly easily sold to the west. Indonesia as well as the strongest links of any S.E asian nation to western trade through its many massive ports and long history of dutch colonization.
But the mainland focuses on a different market, on China.
The wood economy of S.E asia works by the poorer nations of Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and rural malaysia cutting logs, mostly out in the jungle with chainsaws or other gas powered tools, the logs are then hauled mostly overland to the vietnamese border, where more established mills saw the wood, and it is then sent mostly to the city of Hanoi, where both Chinese furniture makers from southern China, and the robust furniture industry of Vietnam purchase it, mostly for internal use or for export to China.
The S.E asian woods that americans see are truly the dregs. what is left after this well established economy has picked the best material for internal use.
But over the last year, i have been able to insert myself between the Vietnamese mills and the wholesale market, in part through my girlfriends family who runs furniture making in Southern China, and partly through my reputation for paying high prices and fair dealings with wood sellers the world over. And the quality of woods is truely second to none. Amboyna burls from Cambodia, Black and white ebony from Laos, Satinwood from Myanmar, and Sandalwood burls from Malaysia.
And now, im actually at the edge of trying to expand my business. As i said before, im a young guy who loves doing this, and i recently was given the opportunity to get in some massive slabs of one of the rarest, most beautifully figured woods ive ever seen, Afzelia Xylay. I have my best contact in the region flying out to the jungle to examine some huge slabs of fully figured xylay, found funding for a loan to order it, and if all goes well this would be my first toe dip into the big leagues of wood supply. All the money Greenberg Woods operates on originated with my Bar Mitzvah money, and the money I saved working at the woodshop in Highschool. All the rest of the money has been the profits earned from sales being reinvested.
I hope this also gives you guys a peak into the work behind sourcing wood. I wish it were as easy as some of my louder buyers say of just popping into the local woodshop, buying some big burls and tripling the list price before rolling around in the ill gotten wealth of wood, but start to finish, this is a lot of work.
I do hope this wasnt too odd of a post, but I also wanted to say thank you to this forum. Its how i got started, its where i learned the culture of knife making, and its where i got my drive to both improve and share the knowledge ive obtained in my own adventures in this field.
Thanks guys.
Ben Greenberg
Greenberg Woods
