Thread: Some questions about Messmate Stringybark

Very quick response without even reading details of your message. I’m in Sth Australia it’s hot & the beer beckons.

Messmate is Pale brownish Wood & most easily distinguished by Gum vein which are comm in its wood (like Marri from WA). The ash group in Tas Oak mix tends to be a paler pink or pink brown. Messmate is more interesting as a wood for furniture. Euge

ahhhhhhhhhh that looks more like Gympie Messmate Eucalyptus cloeziana, most commonly referred to as "dead finish".

It's a hell of a good timber and will be food safe.... but as you've already discovered it tends to be quite firm, like up there with ironbark firm. On the bright side you'll have spoons or whatever that will last for 40 years in ground

Originally Posted by John.G

ahhhhhhhhhh that looks more like Gympie Messmate Eucalyptus cloeziana, most commonly referred to as "dead finish".

It's a hell of a good timber and will be food safe.... but as you've already discovered it tends to be quite firm, like up there with ironbark firm. On the bright side you'll have spoons or whatever that will last for 40 years in ground

That explains it! It was cut from the Gympie area and it sure is hard.
The softer woods in the pile have been attacked by borer but this stuff has been left alone. I'm beginning to understand why.

I'll do a little reading on Gympie Messmate Eucalyptus cloeziana.
Conservation status = least concern.I only have a small amount. So I'm thinking about what I can best use it for. Probably too good for a spoon to be honest. It seems like it would be good for all sorts of things.

Tas Oak/Vic Ash is basically just "Generic Eucalypt"; the stuff you see in hardware stores is what it's meant to be, but occasionally there'll be a log of Messmate or Blackbutt mixed in further up the supply chain

I'm with John, Dead Finish. Messmate is more open grained than your Pic.

John G has taught me something else about woodwork. When an Australian wood worker says a timber is "quite firm" it means that you could almost cut steel with the stuff.


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Dead Finish shouldnt be that hard for you to source where you are - it grows right up the east coast of Qld on better soils with decent rainfall and its also been planted a lot for plantation hardwood though those stocks wont really come on line for a few years yet. That probably doesnt mean you can find it at the local hardware store, or not unless you pay through the nose for it... but Corbett's or Gympie Sawmills would just about certainly be able to source it for you, plus any little millers in the area.

Its a typical Qld hardwood... hard, heavy, durable, pulls like a bitch when you saw it particularly from immature logs but.... yanno its one of the better hopes for plantation stocks going forward because it is a far better structural timber in terms of strength & durability then the likes of Vic Ash/Tassie Oak and unlike many plantation eucalypts it doesnt suffer greatly from a lack of these characteristics in juvenile stems.

I ran a batch of cyclone damaged plantation stocks a few years back as part of a trial. Trees were about 20 years old, and they'd lain on the ground for a couple years before we fed them to the mill so they were inclined to be very difficult but for all that they cut a nice board. They went into a weather exposed deck and 5 years later still no troubles so as far as I'm concerned they can plant a hell of a lot more of it. Beats the daylights outta C-rap pine.

Hi DaveVman

Your photo doesn't look like the messmate that I know - e obliqua. The latter is the slightly darker, slightly heavier, slightly harder and slightly prettier component of Tas oak. Even then, the qualities vary according to where it was harvested and whether it was old growth or regrowth or plantation (I do not know of any commercial plantation messmate, tho'.)

The standard reference Bootles book, but this site is also reliable:
https://www.wood-database.com/messmate/



Cheers

Graeme

Here are some pics from a couple of years ago of what we southerners call stringybark (Euc. obliqua) wood, and desk made of it showing the characteristics of the wood - it colour & gum veins that I spoke of in my brief response while on hols.There are other "stringybarks" of course ... different species with different properties.

Stringybark desk!