Fresh Paulownia *FREE* unless you want to give me something

[Luxyboy]

Hi All,

Dad just had his Paulownia (Empress Tree) cut down and has three decent size logs.
Tree tapered from about 500mm base to 300mm top, the logs are each about 2 meters long.
Let me know if your interested.

Cheers,
Brad

[jmaxwell]

hi brad i would be interested in picking it up pm sent

[whitewood]

hi brad i would be interested in picking it up pm sent

You should get some good planks out of those logs. As they were cut down when the leaves had dropped you will have less problems with blue stain and drying times. Put Paulownia stickers between the planks and place the stack in a position were it will dry as quickly as possible (windy location) as the stain seems to develop on timber that dries slowly. I have not seen timber from Empress tress but i believe there is nothing wrong with it.

John

[Berry Spooner]

Why do we not find more uses for Paulownia ? I have just down a log 900mm dia. at the base and 6metres to the first branch - faultles - and had to give it away to get rid of it
Berry

[whitewood]

Why do we not find more uses for Paulownia ? I have just down a log 900mm dia. at the base and 6metres to the first branch - faultles - and had to give it away to get rid of it
Berry

Hi Berry,
I have followed this forum for a number of years. One of my aims is to help members to either access the timber if they know about it and to inform them of its qualities if I think it is a suitable timber for their project. The other is to promote Paulownia. Like WRC it has limits on its uses and I recognise this. There are many uses for Paulownia but there are not enough trees that have reached maturity in Australia at the moment to supply any serious end user. (If say Boral decided to make all its doors out of Australian Paulownia the existing trees would be gone in a few months.) At present Paulownia is a boutique timber and for some time to come will remain that way. Eventually I think it will become an 'expensive' boutique timber if demand continues to grow at the present rate. Supply and demand will drive the price up.
Your problem was and it one that small plantations face is that it costs a lot to get the necessary equipment to a site to harvest trees. If this cost is spread over say 500 trees then the individual expense is reduced on a per tree basis.
Growing a tree is the one of the lesser costs of production. The big mill where I buy my timber currently values logs at the mill gate at between $200 to $300 per ^m depending on the way it was cultivated and the diameter of the log. Yours may have been worth even more. If you do the sums you can work out what Paulownia is worth as standing timber at any stage of its growth.
I regret for your sake that such a beautiful log had ‘no value’ in the current market. However if you had 50 such trees then they could have been worth some where around $70,000, some time in the very near future, and after the cost of felling and logging to the mill would have still returned a handsome profit.
John

[Berry Spooner]

John
There are a number of Paulownia plantations here in the northern Rivers and the timber is readily available. I have made two chairs from it and no problem with strength/weight ratio. It tends to be a little difficult to work as the cuts are a bit "wooly" and does not carve easily. The main problem with Paulownia is that it has a bad image and people will not give it a go
Berry

[Brisruss]

My son made a surfboard out of it. (Well actually I did most of the work). Seems to be OK
Timber is very light and I found it pretty good to work with.

Cheers,
Russ

[Berry Spooner]

Hi Russ
Down here in northern NSW there seems to be a real demand for Paulownia for surfboards but nobody else is interested. I guess it is up to growers to develop and promote uses if they want to sell it.
Berry

[whitewood]

"Down here in northern NSW there seems to be a real demand for Paulownia for surfboards but nobody else is interested. I guess it is up to growers to develop and promote uses if they want to sell it.
Berry"

There is a lot of interest in Paulownia for wooden surfboards but there is a growing market for the timber for other purposes. I have sold timber to build strip planked kayaks, skin on frame canoes, framing for small sail boats, foils on high tech sailing boats, to skin 5 metre off shore power boats, plantation shutters, wall linings, model and craft makersand to make chairs, guitars, harp. There may be more but that will do for now to show that there are other people using Paulownia successfully. As a point of interest I recognise that Paulownia has its limitations and I ask all people making enquiries what they intend using it for. If I believe it is not suitable I won't sell it to them.
Paulownia at the moment is a boutique timber and I suspect that will not change. I also feel the problem in a few years time will be that there is not enough of it around to satisfy the market.

Whitewood