Kauri is the most famous of New Zealand native trees and one of the largest trees found anywhere in the world. When the first Europeans came to New Zealand the northern parts of the North Island were covered in vast kauri forests, estimated at around 1,200,000 hectares in total. Sadly the thirst for kauri timber throughout the early 1800 and 1900s was so great  barely 4,000 hectares of original forest remain.

Tane Mahuta, (pictured right)  is 51.2m high with a girth of 17.2m, and has been calculated to be over 2,100 years old.  Kauri timber exhibits a beautiful honey glow when finished, it's stiffness (MoE) to weight ratio of around 10.8Gpa  to 470kg/m3 makes it an outstanding candidate for soundboards, my personal  stock has had many lives, a Northland timber mill, floor joists from a bank in Dunedin, and beams from a house in Lake Hawea, hopefully it's my recycle for instruments that shows off it's incredible tonewood qualities.

KAHIKATEA:  (Podocarpus dacrydioides)

Kahikatea was the most beautiful and abundant tree of the countrys lowland swamps. Stopbanking of rivers and the conversion of swamps to pastures have caused the forests of Kahikatea largely to disappear except on the West Coast. Kahikatea grows to heights of over 45 metres and is the tallest of New Zealand forest trees. In diameter it is seldom more than one metre.

The timber has many excellent properties including the absence of odour. This caused it to be in great demand  for the export trade, in the form of crates,boxes and casks. The woods properties and appearance is similar to that of Adirondack spruce it's density is between 400-450 kg/m3 and has a modulus of elasticity or stiffness at 10.7 Gpa.

RIMU: (Dacrydium cupressium)

Rimu is the most widespread of all New Zealand forest trees,occuring throughout the North, South and Stewart Islands from lowland to mountain forest. The large trees can grow up to heights of between 30 and 45 metres, the trunk is usually 1 metre but can be as much as 2 metres in diameter, and often between 700 and 1000 years old.

Timber from Rimu has been the main native in use since about 1910 when it began to displace Kauri, in the use of house and furniture construction.There are very few pure stands of mature Rimu left now, but thankfully recent government policies now protect the felling of Rimu in public forests, though allowing limited logging on private land.

Rimu Timber is certainly among the worlds most beautiful and quality furniture and joinery timbers, The heart being especially desirable for its incredible grain colour, hardness density. As a back and sides tonewood it exhibits a rich bright sustaining tap tone, the weight is around 600kgm3 and the stiffness 9.65 GPa. It  bends, glues and finishes exceptionally well. without a doubt my favourite native timber.

Ancient Kauri: (agathis australis)

These Kauri trees that fell thousands of years ago are known commonly as Ancient Kauri. The trees have been buried and preserved underground in Far North peat swamps, according to expert carbon daters for more than 45,000 years, making it certainly the oldest workable wood in the world .

Some of the Ancient Kauri logs are huge. Ancient Kauri Kingdom has extracted the largest log ever found - a massive 23 metres long, 11.3m girth, weighing approximately 140 tonnes.

Ancient Kauri as a back & side tonewood is incredibly sounding as it is beautiful, although the highly figured “whitebait” grades can be a little tricky to bend, time and effort spent sanding and buffing to a high gloss finish is rewarded by the beautiful hues of glowing amber cognac and the unusual shimmering iridescent chatoyance within the grain coming through. Tonally it could be best compared with a Koa or claro walnut with a sustain that is out of this world.

MATAI:  (prumnopitys taxifolia)

Matai grows throughout the lowland forest areas, to an altitude of 600-700 metres. Mature matai is one of the finest native species, renowned for high yields of clear straight heartwood timber of excellent finishing grades.The tree grows up to 20-25m in height with a 1.3m diameter at breast height.

Matai has a density of 610kg/m³, and a 8.1 modulus of elasticity. It exhibits fairly low shrinkage, from green to 12% moisture content to dry it will only shrink 3.5 % tangentially, and 1.9 % in the radial direction.This high dimensional stability and hardness made it the timber of choice in the 1950's where it was used for bridge construction, framing and weatherboards.The hard, reddish-brown wood also made excellent flooring timber, which happens to be my source of this timber, with all these atributes it certainly is a quality timber choice for guitar necks.

Puriri is endemic to New Zealand and can be found in the upper half of the North Island from North Cape to Waikato, and from Mahia on the east coast to Cape Egmont on the west  It grows in a range from sea-level to 800 m above. Puriri is a tree up to 20 m tall, with a trunk commonly up to 1.5 m in diameter.

By the 1940’s Puriri had been logged to almost exhaustion to provided timber for a wide range of end uses. fence posts, railway sleepers, shipbuilding and house blocks, remarkably it was ground durable without treatment for 50 years or more. Its quality and appearance is equal to the best Italian or American walnut. I use puriri exclusively for fretboards and bridge’s for its strength contrasting colour and incredible hardness.