Thread: Questions about Australian woodworking culture

Stick to metric. Most people don't use imperial unless they grew up with it or work with people who did.

Originally Posted by Daniel80

Hey guys,

Since I am from Europe I am interested in Aussi's woodworking culture...


I do have two questions


First:
Besides the metric system you also use the imperial. But in this forum I just have seen the use of imperial system.
I would like to know which one is the most common in Australia in general. I was wondering if I should also post in imperial...

metric is far more common ... personally i am a hybrid ... i tend and prefer to use imperial but that probably reflects my age ... my thicknesser is european though and uses metric so i do a quick convert and use metric then

Originally Posted by Daniel80

2nd:
which wood types do you use most for woodworking in Australia. I know it heavily depends on what the use case is, but maybe you can give me
a rough idea what is used most for furnitures. How about the occurrences of the differnet wood types?


Thank you very much


Greets
Daniel

i don't know that i am representative of the group but i prefer harder woods so use redgum and bluegum, and for a lighter contrast tulip oak and generic eucalypt known locally as ash or oak (although really neither oak nor ash) ... i did score a truckload of WA karri cheaply so will use it when it dries enough ... it is quite hard but (this lot) a pinker colour than the redgum ... i also use WA jarrah a bit and on one occasion some WA marri but i found it a non-descript wood, hard enough but quite bland and i may as well use the local generic eucalypt

a lot of people use blackwood but it is a bit softer (and the main reason i don't use much is that my wife doesn't like it) .. i have used it with huon pine though as they set each other off nicely

welcome to you anyway

regards david

Originally Posted by Daniel80

Besides the metric system you also use the imperial. But in this forum I just have seen the use of imperial system.
I would like to know which one is the most common in Australia in general. I was wondering if I should also post in imperial...

Daniel
As others have already said, most of us have grown up using both systems. And some things just keep their "old' names - so timber that is nominally 100 mm x 50mm is still called "4 by 2".

I use both, even in the same project. I may mill the timber to 20mm in thickness and then use imperial measures to cut it to length. Or more frequently, I will determine lengths or widths by reference to the actual piece I am building, so it won't be any recognisable "round" number in any measuring system. But it fits!

But in terms of your own posts, use the system that you find most comfortable. We'll be able to follow (the only ones who won't are the guys from the USA, and they choose to be part of these forums and so they know that they are the odd ones out when it comes to measuring).

Originally Posted by Daniel80

which wood types do you use most for woodworking in Australia. I know it heavily depends on what the use case is, but maybe you can give me
a rough idea what is used most for furnitures. How about the occurrences of the differnet wood types?

Australia has an extremely wide range of native timbers that are only common here and these tend to attract the attention of furniture makers here, so most of the timber used for furniture does not have a clear companion on other continents. Persoanlly my favourites are Tasmanian blackwood, Huon Pine, Kauri pine, Spotted Gum, River Sheoak and Australian Cedar.
Beware, many of the names are misleading - often the 'common' name of a timber is not an accurate description of the timber - Huon Pine is not a pine, Australlian cedar is not a member of the cedrela family! The early white settlers gave the timbers names that conveyed to them what the timber reminded them of rather than what was botanically accurate.

Originally Posted by Daniel80

I do have two questions

First:
Besides the metric system you also use the imperial. But in this forum I just have seen the use of imperial system.
I would like to know which one is the most common in Australia in general. I was wondering if I should also post in imperial...

don't convert metric to imperial just to post here.

just use which ever measurement system you are most comfortable with -- or the system on the plans you may be following.

2nd:
which wood types do you use most for woodworking in Australia. I know it heavily depends on what the use case is, but maybe you can give me
a rough idea what is used most for furnitures. How about the occurrences of the differnet wood types?

the most "common" wood in Australia is probably construction grade pine -- mostly pinus radiata.

closely followed by construction grade mixed species hardwood which is used for decking

wood for furniture tends to be a specialised market and there's usually a fair representation of European and US species.

I think the most common furniture timber in Australia is chipboard or mdf using blum or hettich system hardware. That is always speced in metric.

People posting to these forums are often amateures making bespoke things to fit in with or following old imperial plans. I'm currently building some doors. My concept plan is all metric, however some of my descriptions are in Imperial, mainly because the old tools I'm using to make the mouldings etc are old imperial wood planes and other tools.

Originally Posted by Daniel80

How about the occurrences of the differnet wood types?l

Most Australians don't have clue regarding the wide variety of species we have in this country.
For example there are around 800 known types of Eucalypts (700 occurring in Western Australia).
Only a few, the most common of the larger types, are able to be turned into usable timber.

Some general info about Western Australian timbers can be obtained here
Species information (native forest) | Forest Products Commission
And plantation timbers here
Species information (Plantations) | Forest Products Commission

Re Metric V imperial
Stick to metric

FWIW I use measurement units depending on my hands/brains on experience with the topic at hand
e.g.
For airflow and air pressures I usually think in imperial FPM, CFM and PSI.
For timber I can think seamlessly between the two systems, I get plenty of practice with imperial because I regularly (re)post on US websites.
For weight, volume, area, force, energy, and any physics stuff I think in metric but can swap between the two easily enough.

Definitely think in Metric here. Though I will often say an inch instead of 25mm even though imperial had been phased out by the time I went to school

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

Definitely metric. I think imperial is mostly used verbally or when the tool or item is unavailable in a metric measurement, for example, "move that over about three inches" or "hand me the half inch bit".

The which kind of wood question is a tough one to answer, which is probably why you've gotten very vague responses.

In my outsider's experience there, it's mostly regional. It's not like in the US where Cherry, Maple, Oak, and Walnut are being grown and harvested in large quantities and shipped all over the place. Also, apparently every kind of wood is so rare that "you just can't get it anymore". Like literally... that's what just about every person I bought wood from over a 2.5 year period would say. Maybe it was my American accent. I dunno.

Another thing worth pointing out is that Australia has several different wood producing ecosystems that are vastly different. Tasmania, which is renowned for it's great furniture woods, ranges from temperate rainforest to subalpine forest. The most common timber bearing ecosystem is probably the drylands, which is where you find most of the eleven hundred some-odd Acacia species, among many hundreds of others. Several of the hardest and most dense woods in the world come from inland Australia. And then there is my personal favorite, which is the tropical rainforest ecosystem found mostly in Queensland. This is where you find many of the premier furniture quality species.

I think it would be tough to argue that the most well respected and widely exploited and exported furniture wood from Australia is Toona ciliata, or Australian Red Cedar. This is among the "True Mahogany" species, and was greatly appreciated by the British during the colonial period. I'm willing to bet that there are hundreds of pieces of furniture in the UK right now made of it which are simply called "Mahogany". It's a rainforest giant that works and finishes about as well as anything else anywhere.

Anyway, that's just my take, and I'm not even Australian (yet...), so what do I know?

Cheers,
Luke

Originally Posted by BobL

Most Australians don't have clue regarding the wide variety of species we have in this country.
For example there are around 800 known types of Eucalypts (700 occurring in Western Australia).
Only a few, the most common of the larger types, are able to be turned into usable timber.

Some general info about Western Australian timbers can be obtained here
Species information (native forest) | Forest Products Commission
And plantation timbers here
Species information (Plantations) | Forest Products Commission

Re Metric V imperial
Stick to metric

FWIW I use measurement units depending on my hands/brains on experience with the topic at hand
e.g.
For airflow and air pressures I usually think in imperial FPM, CFM and PSI.
For timber I can think seamlessly between the two systems, I get plenty of practice with imperial because I regularly (re)post on US websites.
For weight, volume, area, force, energy, and any physics stuff I think in metric but can swap between the two easily enough.

Yeah I was blown away once I started doing some reading on the species here in Australia. 'Woodwork - In Theory and Practice' has a chapter with a really nice chart that I often refer to. Really great book full of useful information and illustrations.

Originally Posted by BobL

Most Australians don't have clue regarding the wide variety of species we have in this country.

Many Australian's think that paper veneered termite barf is solid wood. It's the Freedom / Ikea effect.


A big difference is the number of different species available compared to Europe. 1000s in Australia, compared to 10 to 20 in Europe.
Also silviculture is still in its infancy in Australia. Most work has involved fast growing industrial species for framing timber or pulp wood.

Generally metric until you have to buy tools that are made in the US (like it or not, the US remains the largest market in everything). For example, they only sell router bits in imperial.

Only a fraction of tools in the world are in metric. Imperial based tools are of a bigger and more complete universe [emoji45]




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Australia is metric in principle... but many products are still sold in Imperial sizes. Translated into metric.

For instance sheet goods are no longer sold by feet but by mm. 6' x 4' not available anywhere but you can have a 2440mm x 1220mm.

Planks are priced by the metre but supplied by the foot; ie 900, 1200, 1500, 1800, 2100mm etc.

The daftest one though is where Imperial fasteners are sold in metric lengths; eg 8g screws 30mm long; or 3/8" Whitworth bolts 50mm long.

Personally I use both and mix and match as I feel like it!

I grew up with both metric and imperial, I spent 26 years repairing American earthmoving machinery, so I had to work in imperial everything, it was annoying having to work on a metric machine. I have been out of that trade for 10 years now, and slowly have been changing my habits to work in metric, it is a far better system for measurement.
The only thing I still prefer using imperial for, is setting the valve clearances on my engines, I don't think I own a set of metric feeler gauges. I have no trouble converting point something of a millimetre into thousandths of an inch.

I think it is fair to say metric is the accepted system in Australia.

Originally Posted by Chief Tiff

For instance sheet goods are no longer sold by feet but by mm. 6' x 4' not available anywhere but you can have a 2440mm x 1220mm.

Except plywood which is 2400x1200 and very irritating when you're used to having the little bit extra.