Thread: Finding wood in Brisbane

Matthew,
get in contact with forum member "tgcreations", trevor's a great guy and got some realy nice timber in Brisbane.

White Beech is a great carving timber very similar to basswood to carve.

I have some slabs of it if you are interested.
75mm x 600mm x 1200mm

Cheers

Steve

Basswood is used by a lot of carvers in North America so you will see lots of references to it. I am yet to find a perfect Aussie replacement but the good news is that we have plenty of timbers that carve well. A few that I have carved with success in no particular order;

- Pinus Radiata, yup, crapiata from Bunnings. Doesnt hold small detail but works well with very sharp tools. Cheap
- Camphor Laurel, the pest tree, the less colour the better for carving IMO. Im not smart enough to work the grain into my designs.
- Kauri Pine, Holds detail well, nice bland colour
- Western Red Cedar, its hard to get thick pieces but it is nice to carve, watch the grain,
- White Beech as Steve says. Holds detail well, bland colour
- Solomons Ebony, wait till you have some experience and can use power tools
- Olive wood, same as Sollies Ebony
- Queensland Maple, needs sharp tools, the bland bits are best
- Jelutong, lovely to carve, hold detail well, from specialist wood dealers as it was extensively used in pattern making
- Some Merbau / Meranti. Pick the light coloured, light weight stuff (from Bunnies, cheap )
- Huon Pine, for when you have won the lottery, as nice as timber gets IMO
- Jacaranda, a bit like Meranti,


Google each of those names and use Brisbane in your search, there will be plenty of vendors. There is also the side of the raod option. Watch out for people knocking over exotic trees. Ive heard of Palms and Mango being carved but I can speak to them.

If you can't find basswood then consider Paulownia. It is similar in colour and is softer than western red cedar. Geoff Moase at Burleigh phone 0411676854 sells it and can post or courier it to Brisbane if that suits. I think he may have some 100 x 200 mm planks if you needed it that large.

Whitewood

I frequent the local demolition yard at coorpooroo from time to time. Sometimes they get windows and doors in that are in too bad a state to resell. John cuts them up to save the glass. The left over timber usually ends up as scrap. I've grabbed a few bits off of him for pen making. However there is a local guy who grabs a heap of it, laminates it together into big blocks for carving. The wood is usually she oak or qld maple. Occasionally you'll get some nice cedar.