Thread: Thanks, and advice on northern box

Dunno Des, it's not listed in Tree's of Australia or either of my 2 bibles, must be a local name. Ask whoever's selling it for more info.
Cheers
Barry

Don't know if is the same box that you are talking about but in the New England Tablelands area we have two species of box around here and I don't know if these are local names.

They are Yellow Box and White Box. These are very dense and very heavy. They use a lot of Yellow Box in timber bridge building and has a pale yellow colour with very tight twisted grain. White Box is very similar but with a much paler colour.

Also makes excellent fence strainer posts.

These timbers also make excellent fire wood that burns very hot and will buckle cast iron grates in stoves.

Gidday Des,
As far as I'm aware Northern Box is a marketing name for imported Brush Box (Lophostemon confertus an aus species & I think it's sometimes called Qld box up your way). Except this expat has been grown in plantations in other parts of the world. It varies from ours mainly in natural feature occurence rates, has more uniform colour and grain and it smells real bad, probably from different soil composition, and I suspect lower silica and acid content. (easier on the tool edges). Some producers are importing rough sawn resource and finishing it off here.
Have just seen an outdoor table made from this particular strain, looks ok, not as dense grain structure as native grown timber though.
Our homegrown BBX normally doesn't like traditional glues and some finishes and can be extremely hard on your cutting tools, (10-15 percent silica structure will do that everytime, ask my router bits, saws chisels etc).
Our house is littered with BBX furniture and I use BIG screws and heavy jointing methods,
Hope this helps.
Bruce C.

Thanks for the replies.

E.tectifica seems to be the technical name for northern box according to a NT govt site and a few other places. Everywhere on the internet and the few references to it here have it as a flooring wood. It is very dark, heavy and dense with a very tight grain. I think it would be pretty tough on cutting edges. But it sure looks good sanded and "polished" with a wipe of turps.

Could be a bit too much for me at this stage, so I might stick with the kwila, and fiddle around with a few off-cut pieces of the NB to see how it handles.

Thanks again for your help.

Regards
Des

Sorry to pull up an old thread. I thought this might be helpful.

Northern box is a Malaysian timber - Tristania spp. A more correct name is Pelawan.

I'm just about to use it on some decks, seats and screens. I've chosen it over Marbau because it doesn't bleed so you can seal it straight away - so I have been told.

I like the dark colour, fine grain and its very dense. Its also classified Class 1 inground durability

I'll post some pictures when its done.

BTW I've been assured its a plantation product.

EDIT Bruce C you may be right because our Brush Box did get renamed from Tristaniopsis to Lophostemon and back again to Tristania in the early 80's. From what I have gathered Pelawan is one of three species neither of which is conferta like our Brush Box.