Professor Zurcher still continues to research the impact of moon on various nature related phenomena. The first thing discovered in Zurich was that a tree would pulse in step with the phases of the moon, i.e., it would swell and shrink in diameter by a fraction of a millimeter. Nevertheless, its length would never change.
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Similar research efforts were also initiated in Vienna and Hamburg. The Vienna and Hamburg research was short lived and proved nothing. On the other hand, the five-year research in Zürich confirmed the truth of the old grandfather’s knowledge. The results of these studies have been published in the most reputable publications of the world.
However, the book also reached Professor Ernst Zurcher at the ETH Institute in Zürich. It is the best technical university in Europe and one of the most renowned technical universities in the world. Based on his accumulated knowledge, a five-year research was organized to study moonwood.
However, scientists and other industries responded with a hail of criticism and ridicule. He was called the moon whisperer and stamped as an esoteric. An Austrian trade magazine has even commissioned research that was supposed to officially confirm that moonwood was nonsense. And, of course, test results matched the client's wishes, as it often happens in such cases.
However, he believed that he should not keep this precious knowledge to himself, because it could change people's thinking about wood and make the world a little better as a result. He believed that what goes around comes around. This book caused a stir among the entire woodworking industry in the German-speaking area and many old craftsmen reacted positively to it.
The notes he took throughout his observations eventually became a manuscript and was accidentally discovered by a publisher. He talked Dr. Thoma into publishing his first book, “I Saw You Grow”, in which he precisely described the phenomenon of moonwood. Dr. Thoma’s friends advised him not to disclose secrets of his business.
It dried faster and was more resistant to fire. And, most of all, it was harder and stronger, with no tendency to swell when exposed to moisture. Today, Dr. Thoma builds homes everywhere including the tropics next to termite mounds, where everything is usually eaten by insects except Holz100 homes. As he claims, there has never been any problems with woodworms or fungi.
This was the third time that Dr. Thoma reveled in the fact that there was more knowledge to be learned about wood than what he had learned at the university. As he continued to work with wood, he began conducting his own research and took notes. It turned out that this “moonwood”, as he called it, was more resistant to fungus, and especially to blue stain fungi.
Once the snow melted, Mr. Thoma went to fetch the wood. The first thing he did was to check for woodworms, and it turned out that there were no signs of pests on it. Out of curiosity, he checked the other pile of wood at the neighbor's and found that it was completely infested with woodworms!
His timber was set aside in one pile while lumberjacks continued to work on a new pile of timber, despite the fact that the moon had already entered a different phase. The timber they cut at this time was set aside in another pile at the neighbor's. Because of the snow, the wood could not be transported, so they had to wait until spring.
“Grandfather”, Dr. Thoma replied. “I studied forestry engineering in Vienna with the best professors. If such knowledge existed, I would have heard about it a long time ago.” Still, his grandfather remained stubborn. “I've been doing this all my life, you should try it, too” - he said. Dr. Thoma was still skeptical; however, he decided to harvest the next batch of timber in January, during the waning moon.
Again, it was his grandfather who came up with a solution. He mentioned how we should only and solely use wood that was harvested at its best. What does it mean, though? The idea is to only harvest wood when the sap levels are its lowest in winter, but most importantly, to do it solely during the waning moon.
He asked his grandfather to be his advisor. And this is how, in the 80’s, they started their business - one that would run completely contrary to the modern trends of civilization. Initially, most of their orders were for flooring. Unfortunately, these floors were often installed in new buildings, where there was still a lot of moisture in the concrete. As a result, the wood would swell with time, and the parquets would expand and contract.
This was another event in the life of Dr. Thoma that made him start questioning modern methods of problem solving. Since the properties of wood saved his children from suffering, he thought that there might be a demand for traditional woodworking. He decided to open a woodworking shop, with an idea that wood might also help other people.
Dr. Thoma sent the children with their mother away for the holidays, and together with his grandfather, the two replaced the particle board walls and furniture with simple and handmade solid wood. When the children came back and after a short period of time, all symptoms of their allergy disappeared.
The only solution was cortisone therapy. A leaflet revealed that cortisone administered to children under the age of 20 would destroy their kidneys. Luckily, Dr. Thoma's grandfather, a carpenter already in his 80’s at that time, had a different yet simple solution - to replace the toxic components of their home with pure, raw wood.
After many visits to the doctors, it turned out that the children were allergic to particle boards that the furniture and the floors in the new apartment were made of. This surprised Dr. Thoma, as particle boards were made from wood. It wasn’t the wood, said the doctor, but the chemicals seeping out of them.
When Dr. Thoma's children reached schooling age, he had to quit the forester's position and move with his family to Salzburg, a more civilized area. Two weeks after moving into their new apartment, the children began to cough consistently. Over time, their coughing became so intense that it created a threat of suffocation.
Modern machines, chemistry, and even computer science have all been invading all areas of the economy and forest management, as well. In Austria, young foresters often have to wait several decades before receiving their own forest supervision area.
Only if you offered a 100 times its weight in gold, you might be lucky and be able to buy such a violin”. Craftsmen, who had no advanced technology at their disposal, were able to make spruce timber a 100 times more expensive than gold. It is not just the material value that counts. Such an exceptional instrument becomes priceless for all human cultures, since its sound will continue to provide joy to many generations of music lovers for centuries.
Of course, Dr. Thoma had no idea. “Look” - the luthiers said - “a violin like this weighs about 470 grams. If you wanted to pay for it with the equivalent of its weight in gold, you would be laughed out of court. If you wanted to pay 10 times as much in gold, you would be laughed at as well.
Two worlds began to collide in his mind. On the one hand, his technocratic, engineering education, and on the other one was scientifically unexplained, ancient and traditional knowledge. When he shared his thoughts in a conversation, one of the luthiers asked if he knew what the added value was when creating such a violin.
He began to realize that there was more to wood than he had been taught at the universities. He was moved to the point that he couldn't stop thinking about it. He was trying to understand how it was possible. The luthiers had no technology, no measuring instruments, just their intuition, tradition, and old knowledge carried over from generation to generation - and they created such an incredible instrument out of a piece of wood.
To express their gratitude to Dr. Thoma and his family, they came to play a small violin concert in front of his house, in the middle of the forest. Mr. Thoma loved trees and the forest, but he wasn't especially romantic about them. However, the sound of his trees coming from the violin introduced him to a new world.
Sophisticated chemical processes, technically insignificant, occur in wood within that long timeframe; these processes are, however, important to the process of producing such a special instrument. The luthiers couldn’t stand waiting and decided to try and build a violin regardless.
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