Although many people today still relish the pleasure derived from a piece made from an "exotic" wood I consider all woods beautiful. Many laminated pieces I produce are made from cut-offs from pallet manufacturers & skids that come in from Japan. The Japanese skids are quite often made from Meranti (Luan) and because of great colour variations are particularly appealing to me. I have also salvaged teak, rosewood & others from firewood piles. I do buy some exotics when I can use them very effectively, and laminations do lend themselves to this end, but try to avoid it whenever possible. I cannot bring myself to see 10% of a beautiful piece of wood become an object & 90% become shavings. I do however consider myself to be one of the ultimate recyclers as I also enjoy gardening and every shaving & particle of sawdust is returned to the earth as compost or mulch.