Thread: Timber ID ? Is it King Billy ?????

The grain in one of those pictures looks like Celery top. If it was Huon pine it would have the distinctive smell. It could be Macrocarpa but i would expect pieces like that to have more splits and cracks if it were macrocarpa. My father a few years back replaced the wooden window frames in his house with aluminium ones and was showing me his pile of firewood and low and behold i picked up a piece of window frame 250mm long sniffed it and it was huon pine i was not happy. I did cart back a Blackwood ring and a few split bits. Last time i used King Billy was in high school and from memory it was quite soft where as Celery top is quite hard. I made an outdoor bench with some and it took ages to sand all the saw marks out from the mill.

Originally Posted by sleepy1963

The grain in one of those pictures looks like Celery top. If it was Huon pine it would have the distinctive smell. It could be Macrocarpa but i would expect pieces like that to have more splits and cracks if it were macrocarpa. My father a few years back replaced the wooden window frames in his house with aluminium ones and was showing me his pile of firewood and low and behold i picked up a piece of window frame 250mm long sniffed it and it was huon pine i was not happy. I did cart back a Blackwood ring and a few split bits. Last time i used King Billy was in high school and from memory it was quite soft where as Celery top is quite hard. I made an outdoor bench with some and it took ages to sand all the saw marks out from the mill.

I have a fair bit of King Billy purchased as off cuts from another forum member. It is quite soft, light and has its own distinctive smell which is very different to the very unique smell of Huon. King Billy works & turns very well when you understand how to machine it.

Your story about the firewood from home reno's is much the same with older homes and buildings in North Queensland. Quite common to find high quality old growth Northern Silky Oak (NSO) or Red Cedar joinery, architectural fimish mouldings, door jambs etc. I still have some shorts of 8 x 2 " Red Cedar door jamb that came from a QLD Gov't building and very high quality NSO that were tressels for portable tressel tables that came from the old Townsville Hospital site.

The timber is quiet soft I can mark it with my thumbnail

whereas the celery top I have is much harder and heavier

thats what prompted the initiial question

does anyone have a photo of bark surface on a known bit of King Billy ?
then we could compare it with earlier photo

try

Blackwood, Pine, Burlwood, King Billy, Plantation & Rainforest Timber | Tasmania, Australia

Athrotaxis selaginoides (King Billy pine) description