Building with 5,000 year old wood...

Would you believe me if I told you that wood that has been lying in a bog for over 5000 years can be turned into a stunning instrument?

Introducing my oldest ever guitar, Noah. He’s a model M12, short scale guitar made from a set of old, Salvaged Redwood and ancient Fenland Black Oak, radio carbon-dated to be around 5,300 years old!

We used a hand rubbed oil varnish and an opened grain finish, using a traditional furniture making technique of scrubbing the grain using a bronze brush to pull out the pith from the grain giving it a beautiful textured look. But the real star of the show is that ancient wood…so let’s take a step back in time to find out where it came from.

Many thousands of years ago the East Anglia fenland basin was very densely forested by gigantic Oak trees, growing happily and dreaming of one day becoming guitars.

Around 7000 years ago a rise in sea level left the Fenlands under water and the trees dead as they stood. When the trees fell into the silt of the forest floor they were preserved under anaerobic conditions, leaving us with one of the rarest and most precious hardwoods in the UK.

That stunning black colour comes from a chemical reaction between the tannins in the Oak and the soluble irons present in the mineral subsoil, but there is a lot more to Bog Oak than its colour, for example, it has a weight and density when dry comparable to the world's most expensive and highly prized tropical hardwoods.  

“Aside from the oak’s tonal properties, the idea of having a native wood from a tree that stood 5,500 years ago was pretty mind-blowing!...not only have I got a guitar that absolutely sings but visually the tonewoods just jump out at you” - Noah’s owner.