Thread: Messmate vs Mountain/Alpine Ash

I'm a bit out of touch with the latest marketing but my understanding was these species were all sold as Mountain Ash nowadays unless you go directly to a local mill with old timers who can identify and be bothered seperating the different species.
H.

This is a woodworking forum, so any wood is "in" here. Usually recycled timber is far superior to todays milled timber bought at your local hardware store (the term is used with tongue in cheek). Highly featured? fiddleback is my idea of highly featured,
or an interesting grain contrast (just my personal taste).
Most of the timber in my house is recycled or re-used. Ironbark posts 300x300, messmate beams and lintels 300 x 150, redgum lintels 300x175, spotted gum posts 120x120, brushbox, tallowwood, alpine ash, Sydney bluegum, red box, murraypine etc.
The beauty of recycled timbers are these; the timber came from large old growth forests, the trees were huge compared to what is left. And the timber is well and truly seasoned.

So by highly featured, I mean this look (found on google):

https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws....ound-table.jpg

which seems to be very popular. Everyone just calls it reclaimed messmate - I suppose my question is, can you get mountain ash/alpine ash (which seems to be more common here in Melb) with that many gum veins that is not 'reclaimed'.

I find it difficult to find Tassie Oak/Vic Ash/Mountain-Alpine Ash/Messmate with extreme gum vein defects, I mean "feature" The commercial suppliers of Vic Ash/Tassie Oak pretty much always quarter saw the material to reduce the amount of drying defects. If there are gum veins running through the board, a gum vein displays as a straight line on the quarter sawned faces. On a backsawn face, as you can see in your image, the gum vein opens up and can cover the entire width of the board. You find much more backsawn material in the reclaimed timbers which is why you see so much more gum vein defects when compared to the select or standard and better grades of modern times.

ahh that makes sense now - how it was sawn. Although I'm new to this I have noticed most of the vic ash piles I've looked at were quarter sawn which I thought was odd cause i read that quarter sawn stuff is generally more expensive - didn't know it was standard for these timbers due to the veins

Just a side question, is there a term to describe the face grain of quarter sawn vs plain/back sawn timber - where quarter sawn timber grain appears straight and plain/back sawn timber appears ______?

Originally Posted by qwertyu

Although I'm new to this I have noticed most of the vic ash piles I've looked at were quarter sawn which I thought was odd cause i read that quarter sawn stuff is generally more expensive - didn't know it was standard for these timbers due to the veins

Vic Ash / Tassie Oak etc is supplied quarter sawn because that orientation maximises the usable timber. If Tassie Oak is rift or flat sawn far too much becomes useless after kiln drying.

The reclaimed stuff is typically resawn from old warehouse and factory timbers which originally were supplied (60+ years ago) as freshly sawn timber.

Originally Posted by qwertyu

Just a side question, is there a term to describe the face grain of quarter sawn vs plain/back sawn timber - where quarter sawn timber grain appears straight and plain/back sawn timber appears ______?

A series of arches and ovals