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Old 01-08-2006, 10:18 PM
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Andrew Garrett Andrew Garrett is offline
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Ancient Kauri

OK. I'm at work now and have a moment to tell you about this wood. I will begin with an apology for my crapy photography skills! $Expensive$ camera does not mean good pictures! Trust me. It's awesome in person!

Many of you no doubt are familiar with the story of ancient New Zealand Kauri. For those of you who have never heard of it, here's the Reader's Digest version.

I was watching the History Channel a while back. It was an episode of Modern Marvels I think, and they were covering the history of wood, sawmills, etc. One of the segments in that program focused on ancient Kauri wood from New Zealand. Kauri trees still grow there, but as rare giants (much like Redwoods), they are protected by federal law.

50,000+ years ago, giant Kauri trees grew in what were then large swamps. In fact, one source I found in my research revealed that carbon-12 dating is only acurate to 50,000 years. The wood could actually be far older. It is simply off the chart. When the trees eventually fell, they sank in the pete at the bottom and were quickly sealed against the elements. Pete is special because it does not contain oxygen. In this oxygen free environment, the old trees were perfectly preserved from a time before Homo-Sapiens walked the Earth.

In recent times, farmers in New Zealand were attempting to level their land for crops. When they tried to flatten out one of the curious humps in the ground, they hit wood! The anient swamps had dried out and the trees remained in the old pete perfectly preserved.

The 50+ millenia underground did have interesting effects on the Kauri though. The oxygen free water which moved through the wood had blurring effects on the grain. The finished wood is very iridescent with an almost transluscent quality in places. It has a creamy glow like no other wood I've seen. Interestingly, the sawdust is nearly odor free. I cut five sets of scales today and my shop has no detectable smell of wood to it. It is softer than some other hardwoods popular with knifemakers. If I press hard enough, I can put the slightest dent in it (in a few spots) with my thumb nail. I'll be sending future batches to WSSI for stabilizing.

Ancient Kauri is the oldest workable wood on the planet. It is highly prized by wood workers and custom furniture makers and the considerable expense is reflective of the fact that there is a limited world-wide supply which is rapidly running out. When it's gone, it's gone forever. Fortunatly, The small, often highly figured, or even burled cast-offs from the milling process are excellent for knifemakers and can be purchased starting at about $50 a board foot in the form of 'chips'.

Sorry for the bad photograph!


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Last edited by Andrew Garrett; 04-14-2006 at 04:38 PM.
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Old 01-13-2006, 06:51 PM
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Looks great!Where do you get it?


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Old 01-14-2006, 01:48 AM
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A company in Wisconson imports this stuff for resale in the states. I person I spoke to on the phone was friendly and quite helpful. I explained what I wanted in figue, size, etc., and he got my order right out.

Here's the website www.ancientwood.com


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Old 01-14-2006, 06:33 PM
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Thanks for the pic and history. Really pretty stuff!


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