Anyone familiar with this wood? It is Kauri that has been buried for about 50,000 years. I bought a piece for $35.00/bd ft. All together it cost me almost $2000.00. That is almost as good as gold mining. Have a read and find out why we woodworkers are a strange lot.

http://www.ancientwood.com/ancientwood_kauri_story.htm

Interesting. Is there a "detector" or anything that lets you know you're on top of a Kauri tree?

You could probably just use ground penetrating radar.

Hehe it is a very nice wood, I have about 20 of them growing around the property and plan to increase that number once I can get the saplings.

I am not sure whether it is Kauri or another native timber they are recoving from swamps locally using a Mil 8 (I think) helicopter to pull them up.

I think that the land that is now farms and ranches were bogs and the trees slowly work to the top soil just the same as rocks rise over time. The trees are huge and when a part is exposed by rain, it can be seen from the air.

Its quite a lucrative business as well the last value I heard on the recovered logs was in the region of $10000 per square meter.

Currently there is a large amount of research into increasing the growth rate of New Zealand native trees (they are incredibly slow growing) as I recall they have managed to the first 10 years growth into one year.

The grain is so beautiful when finished naturally. I hope they have more success than the true mahoghany. Cuban mahoghany is extremely slow growing and there are different species which grow faster but do not rival the beauty of real mahoghany. I acquired some ebony when I was young and it is a beautiful black. Newer farm grown has brown striations because of being bred to grow faster.

One of the guys I work with was the lead researcher on the initial project with the Forrest Reseach Center I will ask him how things have gone with it, we also have a couple of other quite nice woods (Rimu and Matai) although they are harder than Kauri but a fraction cheaper, Rimu is a darker red wood and Matai is slightly darker than Kauri.

If you go to my post and click on "gallery" and see what some examples of the ancient wood looks like, you will see why it's worth the prices. After all there isn't many 50,000 year old perfectly preserved trees left on Earth.

daaaamn!
can you imagine how much it would have cost to have the bar or the staircase done?!!

geez it looks impressive tho!