I was reading over at sidemeat about some blacksmithing that JB was doing. He posted some pics of some hand made nails, and it got me thinking. A few days later, a feature came on the public access about the Liberty Tree guitar that Taylor manufactured a few years back. The video was made years after I left the company, I got a thank you credit, and there are several scenes where I am featured in the process.
Here’s my story.
Some people are great. Some have greatness thrust upon them. I’m neither, but I did play a small part in American history from a modern day perspective.
Back in 1999 I was buying wood for the guitar company in Philadelphia when then tropical storm Floyd made its way up the Atlantic coast. When the storm hit I was hunkered down in my hotel room knot knowing what to expect. Outside the waters were rising, flooding the street below, cars were stalled and soon to be under water and then…the power in the hotel went out.
100 miles to the south in Annapolis Maryland, the same storm was wreaking havoc, one causality was the Liberty Tree at St Johns College. This 400 year told tree was once the place where the revolutionaries planned the independence for this country. There were 13 all together, one in each colony. When the British invaded they made a point to take out the liberty trees one by one.
This tree survived 400 years of growth, fires, explosions, the British invasion, not the Beatles) and would eventually succumb to high winds.
When it was decided that the tree should come down, there was an outpouring from the public. A ceremony and the chainsaws started buzzing. The trees final resting place was not going to be one of hallowed ground, but that of a common landfill
The savior of the tree was a guy named Mark Mehnart. A grounds keeper at the college, he followed the tree to 3 different landfills and recovered what he could. Stashing it in a where house outside of Annapolis, it quickly became money sucking project that was costing him 2 grand a month. Soon he would be desperate, and a call was made to Taylor Guitars.
A few months later I found myself back in the “City of Brotherly Love” inspecting more Mahogany. I got a call from HQ…It was Bob…the Big Guy. He told me the story of the tree, and wanted me to take the side trip to MD to have a look see. The next day I was on the road for a two hour drive. When I arrived I wasn’t sure what to expect. The wood was that like I had never seen before. What was left of the trunk was literally the outer 9-10 inches of wood. It was marred with soot, clay, bricks and concrete, all attempts at trying to keep the tree alive and standing.
After about an hour I decided that indeed we could make guitars out of this wood, and I selected the pieces. I can’t remember specifically, but I think I measured out 35 pieces for the job. Bob wanted to make 2 guitars for every year the tree stood…our target was about 468.
After the deal was done the tree was loaded onto a refrigerator truck and shipped off to Washington State. Although I wasn’t there for the ceremony, Bob later told me that he had a long talk with the truck driver who had no idea about the piece of history that he was hauling. I tracked the load all the way across the US, even calling the driver to check on the progress.
The material arrived at Pacific Rim Tonewoods, and I was on a plane a week later to start the milling. This is the job that I was cut out to do, turning trees into guitars. We carefully blocked out enough material for over 400 guitars, and enough blanks for veneer for the Baby Taylor run as well.
Here’s one thing that you may never hear anywhere else.
Part of the milling required us to export the Liberty Tree to Canada. There I had made arrangements with Jean Larivee to cut guitar sets on a very specific machine. This saw could handle a 3 inch thick block, and turn out 7 guitar sets, one more than I could do on a conventional band saw. The problem…nails, rocks and debris. This machine was very temperamental, and could not plow through wood with reckless abandon. We had so many problems, that we ended up scrapping that part of the plan, and taking the tree back to the states for some good old American ingenuity.
My part of this project would soon come to an end as I would leave the company the next year before the run of guitars went into production.
When I look back on this, I think that I was trained for this one moment in time. I had a drive to learn about trees, how they grow, and how to process the right tree into great instruments. There were the right set of circumstances that came together…the trip tip Philly, the hurricane that I sat through, the tree breaking, the second trip to Philly, and a phone call. All my training, the years of learning came down to this point in time. I believe this because shortly after I was done with the part that only I was suited for, my desire to build would fade, and I would leave the company.
