When guitar maker Matthew Semmens heard a locally loved bunya pine tree needed to be cut down to make way for a new road, he was determined to get his hands on it and make it into musical instruments instead of wood chips.
When guitar maker Matthew Semmens heard a decades-old bunya pine tree in his local area would be cut down to make way for a road and turned into wood chips, he went into rescue mode."I was like, 'We've got to save this tree and use it in the local community building guitars.'"The bunya tree Mr Semmens set out to retrieve was known among locals as the "Jesmond roundabout tree" due to its location on the busy suburban Newcastle roadway in New South Wales.
After initially declining his request for the tree, the road builder eventually agreed for Mr Semmens to take possession of it.After some negotiating, the road builder ended up delivering the tree to Mr Semmens.After cutting the tree into smaller pieces, it was left to dry for around six months before Mr Semmens started to work on its transformation.He said there will be plenty more guitars made, with the tree estimated to provide enough timber for around 500 instruments.
"You look at it every day, you drive past it every day, and I suppose to some people, it was just another tree," he said."It's a living fossil … of great cultural significance." The group liaises with local councils and arborists to have trees destined to be mulched delivered to their facility where they mill in-house.Mr Semmens has called for more councils to engage with local businesses to repurpose felled trees." could be used in the furniture making business and different things, rather than just being turned to wood chips."While Mr Eaton laments the felling of the bunya tree, he is glad there is now a greater purpose for its future.
Jesmond Bunya Pine Guitar Making Bunya Pine Guitar Newcastle Inner City Bypass City Of Newcastle Matthew Semmens Musical Instruments
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