Longwinded Preface:
I recall a long ago PPPost article with an environmentalist referencing a young bear and explaining, "If you come across wild animals for sale, don't rescue, or buy. By taking 'product' out of a market with existing needs, you perpetuate the killing!"
A bit later, thirsty while awaiting transport, I sat and ordered a beer from a Poipet roadside seller, just as a glossy new Landcrusier was pulling away. The seller was chatty. Her friend had previously sold the virginity of her niece to the Landcruiser owning Customs Officer, $600 for 5 days together, and my drink seller thought the family of the dirt poor 15 year-old working for her would be interested in the offer he had just communicated. My transport arrived and I left, but I turned the conversation over in my mind all the way to Battambang. I should have, I decided, walked the girl into HOPE, some 'US Faith funded' NGO up the street. I dislike most of the proselytizing I see in Cambodia, but good stuff happens too. ((Hard to argue with 15 western doctors, dentists, and nurses arriving in a provincial village for a week of free clinics.)) Importantly, the environmentalist's logic not to rescue bears, or girls, didn't feel compelling.)
Buying Cambodian tropical hardwoods isn't nearly equivalent to rescuing young virgins, but if I buy a few cubic meters to keep them in Cambodia, compared to the tens of thousands of C.M. that leave the country every year, I don't feel I'm significantly growing the market. (Of course you can argue the 'market machine' for virgins, prostitutes, wild animals, or board feet is maintained unit by unit, and every single purchase/use, as far as The Evil Machine eating that product is concerned, is equally bad when taken as a whole.
And anyway, I hope planting thousands of trees has preloaded, a bit, my forest cruelty karma.
FINALLY getting to the point.
So, anyway, once back in Cambodia, I'd maybe like to buy 1-3 cubic meters. Beng, Thnong, Koki, etc., Luxury, or some Grade 1 timber, depends. Prefer large, rough-cut OK also. (Not interested in getting busted buying illegal Rosewood sticks. Not interested in getting busted.)
Around/just after the last election was a relatively good price, heaps of cutting, with a bit less buying. Anyone know if countryside prices for quality timber have dropped in 2020, since the pandemic? Do you expect them to this coming dry season?
Buy hardwood during Corona virus?
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All types of timber is difficult to get these days,i just finished building another boat out of Koki Timber and had to source the timber from many places,its also bloody expensive,so much so its not much difference in price to building a boat from steel, i have another boat i need to build soon but it will be built from ferro cement, for the haul at least,
Thanks for the info. I think your boat needs a lot more wood than I was going to buy, but very sad to hear there is so little Koki left. At least, I guess, I was right to buy some before the election.
I should plant a lot more hardwood. Then wait 40 or 75 or 155 years. Weather permitting.
(Wish I could afford a ride on one of your boats!!)
I should plant a lot more hardwood. Then wait 40 or 75 or 155 years. Weather permitting.
(Wish I could afford a ride on one of your boats!!)
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This is the boat just recently finished, can carry 50 people and we use her as a transfer boat to our larger Queen Tara Riverboat
The Queen Tara can carry 300 people and the haul is made from ferro cement
The new boat we will build will be 100ftx30ft and 4 stories high,will carry 200 people and be made from ferro cement,
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the best time to buy wood is yesterday.
i have been buying about 4-5 kip a year for the past 7-8 years.
i use it primarily for furniture and interior build outs.
the price goes up every day and the quality and selection goes down.
i always tell my clients it's the first thing you should buy to try and get it seasoned a bit.
i have told my friends with investment money to buy, buy ,buy.
no one has.
i have been buying about 4-5 kip a year for the past 7-8 years.
i use it primarily for furniture and interior build outs.
the price goes up every day and the quality and selection goes down.
i always tell my clients it's the first thing you should buy to try and get it seasoned a bit.
i have told my friends with investment money to buy, buy ,buy.
no one has.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue pill?
How do you buy it? Where do you store it? How long do you store it?long in the tooth wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 4:19 pmi have been buying about 4-5 kip a year for the past 7-8 years.
I agree completely Long in the Tooth, though unfortunately I haven't invested nearly as much as you lately. However, some of my long ago purchased Beng tables have less attractive equivalents now selling for five times what I paid. The larger table then, was the same price os an ounce of gold, a bit over $600, and now similar Beng & Neng Nouon tables are $3K and gold is around 2K.
The largest Beng trees I've planted are almost as big as my waist, but it grows fast the first 10-15 years and I doubt there is much heart wood in it yet. (First years it will grow bushy and 'branchy' too if you aren't careful.)
BIG tree Luxury grade essentially gone in Cambodia except more remote Central Cardamoms. Many clever folk now buying old, but curvy Thnong from farmer fields, including stumps. A bit sad I suppose, because virtually all the larger wild Beng I commonly see is growing from stumps cut early-90's. Maybe 1/5th of the mid-size Thnong is from stumps too. I'm no real expert, and I don't get out to deep untracked forrest often, but I haven't EVER seen Neng Noun or other true rosewoods wider than my chest at breast height. Even meeting soldiers in the forest, the rosewoods they collect are now thigh thickness at best.
BIG Grade 1 trees, like Koki, getting close to gone too. Koki grows slowly, but seems strong from a young age. Perhaps a cared for plantation would work (?), but don't know where they will get 50 person Dragon boats from after ten more years.
The largest Beng trees I've planted are almost as big as my waist, but it grows fast the first 10-15 years and I doubt there is much heart wood in it yet. (First years it will grow bushy and 'branchy' too if you aren't careful.)
BIG tree Luxury grade essentially gone in Cambodia except more remote Central Cardamoms. Many clever folk now buying old, but curvy Thnong from farmer fields, including stumps. A bit sad I suppose, because virtually all the larger wild Beng I commonly see is growing from stumps cut early-90's. Maybe 1/5th of the mid-size Thnong is from stumps too. I'm no real expert, and I don't get out to deep untracked forrest often, but I haven't EVER seen Neng Noun or other true rosewoods wider than my chest at breast height. Even meeting soldiers in the forest, the rosewoods they collect are now thigh thickness at best.
BIG Grade 1 trees, like Koki, getting close to gone too. Koki grows slowly, but seems strong from a young age. Perhaps a cared for plantation would work (?), but don't know where they will get 50 person Dragon boats from after ten more years.
Thanks for the photos Tarinriverboat! Beautiful!!
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all around but mostly near phnom penh.Guest wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 10:15 pmHow do you buy it? Where do you store it? How long do you store it?long in the tooth wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 4:19 pmi have been buying about 4-5 kip a year for the past 7-8 years.
i sticker it and have a makeshift solar kiln that dries it at a slightly more regulated drying rate.
after a season or two, i pick through it again and run it through my surface planner.
sticker it again in my shop.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue pill?
Long in the Tooth,
What do you mean "sticker it"? Wrap and seal the wood in plastic?
You put more effort into it than I. Sounds wise. What kinds of local hardwoods has your drying been most successful with? As well as board stability, does it become easier to work? Less dulling to the sharp edges of tools?
Thanks.
What do you mean "sticker it"? Wrap and seal the wood in plastic?
You put more effort into it than I. Sounds wise. What kinds of local hardwoods has your drying been most successful with? As well as board stability, does it become easier to work? Less dulling to the sharp edges of tools?
Thanks.
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