Thread: jarrah sheoak marri

Hi Champ, I have some experience with sheoak, As it dries the cells tend to collapse and hence greatly distort. My advice is to mill the sheoak slightly oversize and strip it very, very carefully.
When it is dry sheoak is a spectacular timber to use but be aware it is as hard as !!!!!! Enjoy

cheers for that i guess it shows how much of a novice i am but hey you learn somthing new every day,

i was wondering for jarrah and marri if purely for value of timber is it generaly better to slab or cut boards if boards radial or tangential (new terms i found in a book )

i dont think its really worth slabing the sheoak because the trees dont grow that thick anyway, i think ill leave the sheoak till ive got some practice with the saw dont want to wase any.

does anyone know rough figures for green and air dried jarrah marri or sheoak

all help appricated :confused:
thanks
tom
wa

Gidday redmond

Ive got some sheoak here {mandurah} and its no where near as hard as either Jarrah or Tuart for that matter... what Ive found since starting to cut these Sheoak boards {I scored 7 boards 2.6mtr x 1 1/2in thick x 16 - 18in wide {tapering} at an auction in Binninup last year... ask John Saxon what he got! } anyways what Ive found it that it does have a bit of a tendency to spinter away and break... dont know why havent a clue Ive just found that this did... In every other way its REALLY SPECIAL TIMBER!!! and worth a nice $

Prices at auction are still pretty good for Jarrah and Marri... the auction I attended had dry timbers no green that I saw... what Black said to me {thats the auctioneer fella from Bunbury} when I yarned to him prior to the auction was that you always get a better price dry timber... air dried that is not kiln dried... I asked due to having just milled up a bunch of Tuart and had them stacked out the front wondering if I should air or kiln dry them... needless to say theyre still out the front drying nicely

but to be honest mate youd do better by slabbing them up and giving me a yell and I'll just wander down and take em off your hands... save you the worry and bother of all those people wandering around your place eh?!

One hint though mate slather that goop on!! if you can paint the whole mess of them full length then do so but slather AT LEAST all ends back onto the board by at least 2inches or so... else they will check and thats a real mongrel

From what I saw slab or boards {1 1/2 - 2in seemed average thicknesses} are good for either wood... and also cut the Jarrah into 4x4 5x5 6x6 whatever!! as some people want a stack of 4xs or 5x to cut to what they want on their bandsaws or chainsaws for fences boathouses etc... anyways all sold at reasonably good prices... or so said the owner of the mill

Marri seemed very popular with the creative arty types and the Jarrah for the furniture types that were there... me I just saw that Sheoak and HAD to have it! $400 later I left with it on the trailer... stunning timber!

cheers for the advice ive got alot of space to store stuff (450 acre block) so i guess ill cut it up and save it till its worth somthing

love the look of the natural edge table
so i guess ill be slabbing alot so i can save the good ones till i know enough to do somthing worthwhile with them

when cutting 4*4 5*5 6*6 what sort of airdrying times are required

from what i gather wider thicker longer boards sell for more per cubic meter so i guess that is what il be sawing along with slabs

thanks for the help
tom

G'day Redmond,

A good resource for drying Aust hardwood is the Aust Hardwood Drying Best Practice Manual, which can be found at http://www.fwprdc.org.au/menu.asp?id=36&lstReports=15

It comes in 2 volumes and can take a while to download if you have a dial up internet connection (4MB and 3.6MB).

Hope this helps,
Slavo

thanks for that those reports r long over 500 pages total mate im gona b an expert when im done
they sound really good from the first few pages ive read

thanks again
tom
perth

Hi Redmond, a general rule of thumb for air dried timber is 1 inch = 1 year (in thickness) + 1 year, eg. a 2 inch thick board will take 3 years to dry. Don't give that She Oak away, it is a beautiful timber, it's a bit like Jarrah now getting hard to find over here.
Cheers
Barry

haha i doubt ill be giving much away excpt mabe in return for tools, the idea was to sell the wood so i have some money to set up a little workshop of my own ( uni student = poor)

thaks for the tip on drying i guess itll be a while before the wood is worth anything then 1.5 inch slab = 2.5 years and i looove th elook of natural edge stuff

thanks all
tom

yikes Ive been cloned
heeeeeeeeelp

hmm, suffer baby.