Thread: White & Brown beech

I'm not familiar with Brown Beech, but I had some White Beech (Gmelina leichhardtii) that I sold at a rate of $3500 per cubic meter to a very experienced professional woodworker, and she was happy to pay that price. She didn't even flinch. It's not a wood that you see very often, but, for the right person (a carver) it's gold. I should point out that my boards were wider than yours. They were up to 550mm wide and around 45mm thick. Maybe that helped it sell at a higher rate.

Hope that helps,
Luke

White Beech is a very useful timber. Used for internal and external joinery, turnings, casks... just about everything really. Old growth material has good external durability and is favoured for boat building as a hull planking material and there was a guy here just last week that you ought to talk to:
Aus equivalent to Euro oak

Were it me I'd be chasing (depending on what the logs will cut) clear grade 6x 1.5" rift sawn plank, clear 6" and wider x 4.25" blocks suit ripping for strip plank, and spitting any of the sides out as feedstock material suit external joinery eg window frames and sills. Good clear riftsawn white beech hull planking is sold here before the tree even hits the ground, the specification is tight but demand is good and we get good $ for it. You will need to take precautions against bluestain if you want a premium for it. I expect between 3 and 4 grand a cube for hull grade material, though your shorter lengths will limit that somewhat. The blocks suit strip planking might be attractive at that length provided they are clear of splits and knots - certainly it'd be a lot less work if chainsaw milling and the strip plank guys arent quite so demanding RE grain orientation.

Brown Beech is a useful interior timber but its not particularly attractive so... think paint. 8x2" door stock, feedstock for VJ, it'll make a decent H3 fascia or batten. Larger logs used to be favoured for plywood manufacture. And if you know any woodchoppers its one of the favoured species locally for that which chews up any small logs though there aint no money in blocks. Probably looking at around $1200 a cube for paint grade GOS, $1600 for KD or well air seasoned.

Thanks for your responses they are a great help, I'm at the club this morning and will show them I'm sure they'll be pleased, the sizes that I posted are not very accurate and after looking at the main trunks of the Beech some of the timber for the Lucas Mill are much larger than I initially thought. I'll post more on it later and some pics.