1940 &50s furniture pine.

[Tony ray]

Does any one know what type of pine was used in the mid 20th century draw sides and backs for Melbourne based furniture.

And which pine was used for whole wardrobes. Its very hard to cut with the grain but easy to cut across it with a jigsaw. Also has lots of tiny eyes.

[FenceFurniture]

It could probably be a few but no doubt someone will be able to narrow it down. All I can say is it would be unlikely to be Radiata as I don't think that was used commercially before the 70s (it was from about 78 onwards that all those Pine furniture shops started opening up). Don't think I've ever seen Radiata with bird's eye either.

If you're looking for an ID on what you have there then some pics would be a huge help, and some more descriptors like colour, maybe cut smell etc.

[chambezio]

At a rough guess you could be talking about Hoop Pine. It was used extensively in Joinery and Cabinet Making shops with a "nicer" feature grained species on the front. Our old Wood work teacher at high school called it Parana Pine. The Latin name is Aracaria (Spelt something like that)

[Tony ray]

Got some pictures up. The large wardrobe has the birds eye type pine and was totally made of it.

[rustynail]

Kauri was the knot-free pine of choice for furniture. Particularly food contact furniture ie kitchen tables and cupboards etc. As the timber was very stable, it came into common usage for all forms of domestic furniture.

[Tony ray]

Any ideas anyone about the pine with the birds eyes?

[rustynail]

Common in Kauri.

[Robson Valley]

Pinus radiata was introduced into New Zealand in 1859 and into Australia over the next decade. It's an ideal plantation species for construction and wood pulping.
Stateside, it's Monterey Pine, originally contributed in an exchange for Eucalyptus sp. seed. Now threatened with local extinction over some of it's original natural range.

Trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, people keep trying to make it look good.
Very hard to do, especially since you have other species of much more interesting conifers.

If you think the draw sides and backs are pine. A good look, some measurements and some maths will sort it out if it is pine.
As for which particular species, there aren't enough hours left in my life to mess with that.