Gday all, I am a new member, a teacher from Ipswich Qld and I am looking for cheap or free timber that students could use during lessons on a lathe. Sizes isnt important, some students make candle holders, some make honey dippers, some give it a go and decide this isnt for them. I work at an alterante setting, quite small, catering for just a few students at a time, and therefore we dont have a large budget and it is expensive to purchase timber, as this is only one aspect of what we teach, especially when we are just learning.

Anyne able to help?

There should be plenty of places locally in Ipswich you can pick up stuff for free. If they're only practicing, even green would should suit, shouldn't it? Look for locals tree lopping, those unfortuanetly damaged in the flood, etc etc.

I'm sure there's some locals on the forum here who can offer some stuff too, but it might be better going out to the Timber forums and posting there, as you'll not get that many looking in this sub-forum who can help, probably.

Russell.

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I might be able to donate a box of assorted woods to help out, I'll take a look when I get home.

Just a couple of suggestions:

If your students are going to making items that'll come in contact with food (eg. honey dippers) I very, very strongly suggest that you make sure you know the wood ID and that it's food-safe. ie. a Fruitwood or a neutral timber such as Oak.

All too many free timbers have an "I think" attached to their identity... which isn't ideal.

But apart from that, if you're not averse to garden prunings, then I've found green timbers to be good for absolute novices... esp. when first learning tool handling and they're not going to produce anything worth keeping. (It's so much easier for them to produce long curlies and get the "Oh Wow! This is fun!" factor. Better quality timbers are best saved for later lessons, after they've been hooked. )

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Like a lot of us I have more stuff than I have pleces to put it.......I recon I could come up with a decent sized boxfull of boreing bits if you can collect from the redlands.

cheers

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