A planet saving guitar...what the flax?

Music experts will tell you that the finest guitars are made using exotic wood, such as rosewood, ebony and mahogany. But as usual, voracious human appetite is taking its toll on the timber of the world and while guitar makers' part in the devastation of deforestation is relatively small - they are starting to feel the strain.

But one group of Finnish instrument makers claims to have found a harmonious solution in the "flaxwood tree"; a piece of mythical fauna said to grow in the northern woods around Joensuu in Eastern Finland, where vast misty forests abound and the locals' hearts are "full of music". But the tree has one major drawback...

It doesn't really exist!

Rather than being a real plant, the flaxwood tree is in fact an inventive solution to the problem of disappearing tonewood (the term used to describe the types of wood used to make musical instruments). Those clever Finnish chaps have chopped up some common, non-endangered local wood into little bits, mixed it with a tone enhancing polymer and then injection-molded the mixture into the various shapes that make up a guitar - body, neck and backplate/resonator.

Although the process still uses wood, flaxwood has some impressive green claims:
- if a guitar doesn't make it past quality control or for some reason is no longer wanted, it can be stripped down to the bare flaxwood and then just melted down and remade!

- because no exotic or rare wood is needed, the initial transport footprint is greatly reduced.

- traditional guitar manufacture leaves makers with the problem of waste due to offcuts from wood which are little or no use to them - the flaxwood manufacturing process results in little or no waste.

And the finished product is impressing everyone lucky enough to get hold of one. Premier Guitar has just recently awarded the Liekki (which translates to 'flame' in English) 5 stars, which is a very rare accolade indeed. A whole host of jazz, folk, rock and pop musicians are raving over the range.

So if you want "a tone material that is homogenic and consistent in its acoustic properties and one that resonates with equal force in all directions and gives an even frequency response throughout the guitar's entire range" (it sounds good) and "an ecological, recyclable alternative to wood species that are slowly nearing extinction" (see previous green bit) then you should nip over to www.flaxwood.com and break open your piggy bank as soon as you possibly can! By Paul Ridden

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