Plantation Blackwood?

[Emit]

Hi,

I recently purchased 12 lm of blackwood for a job I've been asked to do. The timber was some of the worsted "blackwood" I have ever seen. My exposure to blackwood before this was from independent millers milling paddock trees or the likes. The grain was widely spaced and I'm almost left wondering if it is actually blackwood.

So the question is do people grow plantation blackwood and is it of a inferior quality.

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[Kuffy]

It is definitely blackwood. Here are some pics of record player i have sitting on my bench at the moment made from blackwood sourced from the Gippsland area in Victoria. Just paddock trees milled by an independent one man mill. Looks very similar to your timbers.

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[Stu70]

G'day Emit
From the photos it appears as though the growth rings are not that far apart, about what I see regularly in native forest blackwood. However, colour variation between boards is all over the place which suggests it's been sourced from different trees.

[Emit]

Thanks for the replies. Maybe it's that I have been spoilt my whole life... The blackwood I have used for different projects has had really tightly spaced growth rings and was quiet dense when compared to this stuff. The timber also had a certain shine/chatoyance, from this experience I believed that this was common for blackwood. Looks like I've learnt a lesson.

Thanks again.

[Justin]

That's certainly Blackwood, I'd agree with Stu that it looks like it's come from different trees. It also looks like they're backsawn, which explains the grain orientation on the face that you seem unhappy with. Perhaps you've worked with quartersawn boards in the past? Be aware that you may get some cupping/dimensional instability in backsawn boards, particularly if you thickness them down a fair bit.