My workshop is located in the south of the New Forest national park, near the village of Sway and within the park boundaries.
The park and it’s surrounding area offers a remarkable opportunity to source my own locally grown materials. When I first moved here in 2017 I gave myself the stated goal that I would be able to offer a New Forest grown option for every part of a guitar – and to be able to make a guitar that is 100% grown and made within the Park.
Making contacts with tree surgeons, sawyers and sawmills, as well as the process of selecting, drying and re-sawing timber suitable for musical instrument making is lengthy and time consuming – though I was helped by organisations such as the New Forest Marque – so I aimed for five years to integrate New Forest timber into my day to day practise.
During the Covid pandemic I invested in a dedicated veneer-cutting bandsaw so that I could handle all of the re-sawing myself.
By 2022, five years after moving to Sway, I was able to not just offer a New Forest grown option for every part of a guitar but rather I had a selection of timbers available and ready to go on the shelf – Grown, felled, milled, seasoned, re-sawn and made into musical instruments without leaving the Park.
Why does this matter?
Musical instrument making traditionally uses timbers grown either in the tropics – the Amazon rainforest, Madagascar, western Africa – or from old-growth mountain forests in places like the Alps, Carpathians, and regions of America and Canada such as Vancouver and the Adirondacks. These trees are slow to grow and largely irreplaceable, the habitats and species they support unique and often threatened.
What’s more, as the best trees are felled it becomes harder and harder to find high quality timber. A lot of rosewood is cut for guitars each year, but the vast majority of it is not of the standard or even the same species that those wonderful pre-war rosewood guitars were made from.
The reality is that there is very little high quality rosewood left in the world, Ebony is reduced to a handful of pockets of forest, mahogany is disappearing.
All that said, sustainably managed sources of tropical timbers with good supply chain transparency can be excellent sources of renewable income for developing nations. I have no problem purchasing ebony from Crelicam, in Yaoundé, Cameroon, or plantation grown mahogany from Fiji.
The point is to have as close a control over my supply chain as possible, and to reduce my environmental impact as much as possible where practical.
Environmental Policy
To encourage this sustainability I have the following policies.
New Forest, British and European grown timber
The standard configurations of all A.S. Potter instruments all feature native and European timbers at no additional cost, and native and European timbers have been given a price break in the wood options compared to the tropical alternatives.
Where I have the option to do so all imported timber is FSC certified, and all imported timber is purchased through trusted suppliers with a proven track record of sustainability.
Sustainable Tropical and American timber
When I buy exotic timber I make sure that it meets one of the following standards.
- Non endangered species / species from non-threatened environments. Not all foreign timber sources are damaging, several common American species, for example, are readily available without much concern.
- From a certified, well managed source. Timber that is FSC certified or from a similar traceable and well documented source imported through a trusted timber merchant.
- Reclaimed and Recycled. When it can be found, broken or unwanted antique furniture can be an excellent source for high quality timbers such as mahogany and rosewood.
- In addition to the above, any species covered by CITES, such as cedrella and some rosewoods, must have the correct documentation.
Available New Forest timbers 2025
I currently have the following timbers grown in the New Forest and surrounding areas available in limited quantities*
Soundboards – Cedar of Lebanon, western red cedar, catalpa, poplar, Monterrey cypress and some beautiful and exceedingly old yew
Backs and sides – Fine spalted beech (some New Forest, some Mottisfont), catalpa, walnut, ash (plain and flamed), cherry, oak, maple, yew
Necks – walnut, cedar, cherry, ash and maple
Fretboards and bridges – Laburnum, walnut, cherry, apple.
*stock is variable, I may have more or less than listed here. If in doubt get in touch and ask what I currently have available.
