Sustainability and your Weber mandolin

Tom Bedell believes best building practices and consumer responsibility go hand in hand towards saving the environment—and making great mandolins!

Your Weber mandolin is a thing of beauty. You can’t put it down. It calls to you. When you’re not busy being fascinated by its sound and its supple playability, you’re looking at it on its stand, enchanted by its visual appeal.

The new Pronghorn, perhaps, catches your eye with its symmetrical points and curves and dark walnut binding. Or, you’ve got a Yellowstone f-style octave that fills a room with its growling, almost guitar-like tones.

But do you ever think about where your Weber mandolin came from?

Tom Bedell wishes you would.

Bedell, who acquired the Weber brand in 2012, is stepping forward as an industry leader in sustainability, and is working hard to preserve the world’s forests while still making remarkable musical instruments.

You’re probably aware that no clear-cut woods are used in Weber mandolins, but let’s dig a little deeper into what it means to be sustainable.

In the guitar world, exotic woods are a mainstay, with species like ziricote, cocobolo and granadillo creating a certain sense of mystery and allure. Mandolins, however, tend to employ a tighter palette and at the Weber shop in Bend, Oregon, African ebony is used for fingerboards, bridges and headstock veneers and mahogany is used solely for backs and sides of Bitterroot series octave mandolins, where it provides a thrumming, sonorous warmth to all that big sound.

Bedell has actually visited the Tonewoods SL mill in the Republic of Congo, which provides Weber with its ebony. He’s gone into the rainforest, too—the second largest in the world—to see for himself how trees are culled in such a way that the process actually helps the ecosphere heal and maintain itself.

“They’re trying to minimize their footprint,” Bedell says. “They take less than two percent of the trees in specifically targeted areas. No clear-cut whatsoever, everything is individually harvested. Then, they close up that section, and they don't go back for 30 years, so that the forest rejuvenates itself.”

Outside of that, virtually all of the body woods used in Weber mandolins—whether yours is a Gallatin or a Fern—are domestic. Given the sheer breadth of the United States, that includes everything from Hawaiian koa (found in the beautiful new Exotic Kona A 20-F) to the northeastern Adirondack spruce that gives such power to all four elite models in the Heritage Series, including the recently updated Crooked River F14-F.

Angela Christensen, who manages wood sourcing for Two Old Hippies, has developed strong relationships with trusted suppliers and is always monitoring the chains of custody. When Tom Bedell urges musicians to be aware of how their instruments affectthe environment, Angela Christensen is the one who can tell them where the wood came from—be it walnut for the Exotic Paulina octave, from old friend and Tillamook neighbor Cyril Jacob, or Sitka spruce, which tops Gallatin, Bitterroot, Yellowstone and Red Rocks models, from Alaska Specialty Woods. Maple is huge in the mandolin world, too, and Weber sources its delightfully flamed sugar maple, which provides bright, reflective muscle under any variety of top, from Missouri’s Old Standard Wood.

At a recent Tedx Talk, delivered in Okoboji, Iowa, Bedell addressed the need for builders and players to actively take responsibility for preserving earth’s environment through smart economic choices.

“All of us need to ask questions about where the products we purchase come from, and whether, through our habits and desires, we are helping the planet or harming it,” he said, following the presentation.

The Sitka used in your Weber mandolin, he noted, began growing during the reigns of Henry VIII and Montezuma. To clear-cut such trees would be an insult to history and an injury to nature. Instead, only salvaged trees, old growth giants toppled by time or wind, are used.

Musical instruments, especially relatively tiny mandolins, use only a minute fraction of the world’s wood supply compared to, say, furniture or paper. And a single log can provide dozens and dozens of prime sets for luthiery. But, as Bedell points out, musicians hold sway over so many, with song being a powerful tool for awareness and change.

You are making a statement every time you play your Weber mandolin, because your music speaks your soul to all who hear, whether it’s your children napping in the next room or a stadium filled with fans. You are making an even bigger statement by choosingyour Weber mandolin, because you are pursuing joy—and providing joy!—while honoring the earth.

Weber lead luthier Ryan Fish literally eats, sleeps and dreams mandolins, but he also tends a hobby farm with his family and spends any time he can in the great outdoors around Bend, which is rich with rivers, woods and mountains.

“I love building mandolins,” Fish says, “but I also love my forest and our planet. I'm really thankful for Tom coming along and being able to spearhead something so important, something I believe in—taking care of our environment.”