Looking for dressed timber for boxes (Melb.)

[gregster]

Does anybody know of any places in or around Melbourne that would a good selection of timbers for making small boxes etc.
I'm specifically looking for small dressed planks around 4-6" wide & around 1/2" thick, length does not matter.
I'm looking for possibly jarrah & horn bean or any other contrasting colour woods.
The important thing is the thickness as I have no means of reducing it.
Thanks for any leads
Greg

[Charles Castle]

Greg, there are three places I know of you might try. One is the Woodsmith at Bayswater, who has a good selection of timber in a range of different sizes. Second is Australian Furniture timbers at Port Melbourne, although they sell in big lots, but you can sometimes get small pieces there. They will cut it to size for you, and I am pretty sure they have dressed timber. Third is Matthews Timber, but I haven't personally been there. They will dress timber for you, but getting timber dressed there is quite expensive -- like about $30. I hope this is some help for you.
Charles Castle.

[ubeaut]

G'day Greg

Are you are after thin peices of timber for jewelery boxes etc.? Or do you want the 25mm type for bigger blanket boxes etc.?

Charles has given you three places, you could also look at Adams Timber and Rare Woods.

Your first choices should probably be Mathers Timber in Rooks Rd Nunawadding or Adams Timber Canterbury Rd Kilsyth. Both will readily sell short lengths (Mathews are usually cheaper) third choice Australian Furniture Timbers Plummer Rd Port Melb. They are hard to get short lengths out of but have an extensive range of fine furniture timbers.

Try also Rare Woods Greenwood St Abbotsford, they have a large range of rare and exotic Australian and international timbers as does The Woodsmith Bayswater.

If you require the thinner sections for small boxes you would do well to try and find a local, wood machinest, and get them to resaw the timber before dressing it. They will do this for a fee, but will do it a lot better than the timber yard. Let your fingers do the walking and turn to page 3347 L-Z in the 2000 Yellow Pages.

Cheers
Neil

[S Hayward]

Hi all

I have to ask Charles a couple of things here. You say getting timber dressed at Matthews is expensive, " like about $30.00"
What the hell does that mean? If that was for a full cubic metre then I'd say it was a bargain. If that was for one small stick, then depending on what it was you wanted done to it would determine whether or not you were getting a deal. Example. We did a job yesterday on three pieces of timber. If it were a DAR job it would have taken about fifteen minutes to do the job. We would have charged fifteen dollars for it. It actually took over three hours to do because it had to be cut into a million pieces, all different sizes, and we also did a bit of glueing up too. All part of the service we offer. The job was not done for thirty dollars even though it was only a small volume of timber.
I don't work for Matthews, in fact their company is in opposition to ours. However, I think you should be careful making broad statements about how things are expensive without adding detail. It's a bit unfair to just label them as expensive in this way. Have you had a PC fixed lately? $90.00/hr
Car fixed? $60/hr
If you did get a raw deal on a machining job once then I would suggest you shop around too. Otherwise, you could always buy some gear and do it yourself. The value in that move depends on how much work you are likely to do. Third option is to move to the Canberra region. Our machining is good and pretty good value!!
happy woodworking
Shaun

[S Hayward]

Sorry Charles
I just re read your posting. You haven't been to Matthews yet. Then your information is second hand. I really do stand by my previous comments on being careful. In America, some would say, see you in Court.
See ya
Shaun

[Charles Castle]

Dear Shaun,
I do understand and take your comments to heart. I did say, as you said, that I had no personal experience of the company in question. You are quite right in your comments about the cost of doing work. I recently quoted for a job in my line of work, and the quote I came up with even surprised me. However when I discussed it with my accountant, we agreed that it was reasonable considering the equipment that had to be obtained, travelling time, staff needed, paper, photocopying and so on. However we need to recognise that some people really don't have the money needed for something, and have to find other alternatives. Thanks for your comments.
Charles.

[S Hayward]

G'day Charles
I liked the sparkie joke. One more point re costs, with GST you will find timber will go up the full 10%, no wholesale sales tax at present, and the machining will also go up 10% as it is a service. I'm just getting a lease in place for some new machines, 10% on the repayments. Well, as the saying goes, there are two certain things in life, death and taxes. As for cheaper machining, the best bet will be to find a mate who can do a bit for free.
happy woodworking to all
shaun