Thread: 'Porta' Pine sheets

I think you'll find that this stuff is laminated pine not just a sheet that has been shrink wrapped, I don't think $41 is expensive at all. It's been qtr sawn, glued and sanded ready to be used

Thanks for your response. You'll have to excuse me, but I'm just a dummy, but what is 'laminated' pine with edges glued as opposed to just a sheet of dressed sawn pine? As in, how are these made differently to the knotty crap out the back?

Hey Fishy,

I think that dj is correct - they are laminated pine boards. The sheets you look at are single pieces of wood with no joins. The wider porta-pine panels are not - they are multiple lengths of timber that have been edge glued together to form a wider board.

Lamination is the process of joining 2 or more boards together to form a wider board (well - in this case that's what it is).

So, the boards you are looking at have been cut, dressed, planed or jointed to be perfectly flat on an edge, and joined together in a fairly seemless fashion - from memory the joins appear to be pretty good.

If you look very closely at the wider boards, you will in fact see the line down them where the edges of the boards meet.

The price is, however, quite high in comparison to the other boards - but you are paying for the pleasure of not having to put two boards together yourself which, with pine, can be a little bit of a pain.

Cheerio,

Oh - in relation to quality, it may be that the porta-pine boards are furniture grade rather than "chum dog food" grade - however I'm not too sure about that one.

Thanks for that Scorch, that makes sense.

I don't mind joining the boards myself, thats not a problem, its just that the quality of the other boards are so bad. I doubt I could get 2 that were straight enough, without edges split etc to get a nice final result without the hassle. I agree the premium price is for the final result, its just a shame the other narrower boards are so bad to start with that one HAS to buy the porta panels.

Are laminated pine panels relatively easy to source from general timber suppliers or am I going to have trouble? A few of the timber suppliers I've rung so far don't even supply dressed stuff, only rough sawn.

Last question - is dressed pine (like the bunnings crappy stuff) all that bad or does bunnings tend to have the dogs breakfast supply? ie, is it worth me looking for better 240 wide boards elsewhere?

Fishy, you need to steer clear of Bunnings and general Timber Yards, these places only really sell building grade and home handy man purpose timber.

What your looking for is known as Clear Grade Pine, you really need to get onto specialist timber supplies. I think Trend Timbers is more what you need to be looking at if you want furniture grade timber. I don't have any experience with this mob as I am down in VIC but a few other members have had good deals with them I believe.

Maybe have a look through the Timber section here on the forums to see if there are any recommendations for suppliers in Sydney.

There's that fellow at Caringbah offering free pine

do a search for free timber

What are you building/making, abitfishy?

That will help with a recommendation.

For me, I wouldn't be using 240mm pine boards for anything furniture-related. Take a look at the rings in the end of the board - the greater the curve, the greater that wood will cup and twist when you least want it.

Is it furniture you are making? If so, there are three common options:

1. Buy the panel. I used this (or similar) product many years ago, when I wasn't confident about making my own panels. It worked really well, and has proven itself in furniture like chests of drawers that have withstood the abuse of two boys now 18 and 16.

2. Make your own panels. Buy timber like 90x19 and edge-glue it. This takes more work, but is cheaper than the store-bought panels. Certainly, at first, you will end up with panels that are not as well made, and which suffer from differences in thickness, etc., from that which you hoped to achieve.

3. Use frame-and-panel construction. This is now my preferred option. I hand-make my panels using 12mm timber, using a Veritas dowelling jig to ensure stock alignment across the panel. That means I don't lose too much in cleaning up the panel after glue-up. I frame these panels in (usually) 19mm stock. The end result is stable, strong enough, and lighter in weight. It also lends itself to a wider variety of joining options suitable for varying skill levels, which is not necessarily true of full size panel construction.

Actually, there is also a fourth option - frame and panel construction using quality, veneered plywood or MDF for the panels. I don't use this, only because I like making my own small panels.

Does that help at all?

Thanks guys.

Ron, a few good ideas there, out of those I think I would possibly edge glue the 90x19 - might work out well, but I think ultimately the panels will be the easier option, bugger the cost. Not furniture I'm making, I'm actually wanting to build reptile enclosures. There are a few builders out there that sell ready made, but they either use melamine or ply (and sell them as 'solid timber' enclosures - yeah right). I want to do something that actually is nice enough to put in a loungeroom/entry foyer and doesn't look like a bunnings special.

Bottom will be tiled using slate tile, all wood sealed using estapol, front edge will have moulding all round to cover the glass door tracks etc and make it look a bit classier. I can picture it really coming up nice using those porta panels.

If you look closely at the bigger 'Porta' panels, you will find that they are end joined as well - basically they take regular knotty pine, then chop it up to remove the knots, run the narrow ends thru' a finger jointing bit & glue them into one long strip, then glue the strips together edge to edge. You get the same sort of thing at joinery works as 'clear pine molding' - they 'forget' to mention its finger joined.

There are several suppliers of 'furniture grade' pine, including Trend (who are excellent) - you may want to do a recon. of some furniture places & find out where they get their timber from. Bunnings and a lot of small timber yards suffer in that their timber is picked over for the good bits, but they insist that everything in the rack is first grade & must be sold before they order any new stock - even if it has great chunks missing or is cracked end-to-end.

Hey all,

Just an update. Bunnings now has a cheaper brand of pine panels - 'Knotty' I think the brand was. Yes, they are a bit knotty, and not (parden the pun) all the panels were perfectly made so I had to pick carefuly, but they aren't cruddy loose knots falling out, as a matter of fact I think they give the wood a bit more character.

And CHEAP too. I wanted to make 1200 x 450 x 400 boxes (for reptile enclosures). Using the Porta Pine panels, 2 x 1200 @ $55 each and 1x 910 @ $44 (cut in half) would have cost me $154. Although I had to settle for 406 deep in the Knotty brand, I can live with that as I only needed 2x 1800 panels at........$50 FOR BOTH. HA HA What a friggin bargain, $24.95 for a single 1800 long panel. I'm stocked, its cut and screwed together and I still have 10 fingers.

Thanks all for your suggestions and assistance.

I know you scoffed at ply and MDF, but you can get some with a very a nice timber veneer, from a board supplier. 1200 x 2400 for a bit over $100

Then I need to get someone else to cut it all, and also stuff around with edge veneers. And then its still ply or MDF......

But thanks, I did consider veneer.