Thread: Tas Oak / Vic Ash. A bit of a rant.

The issue lies with unit shrinkage. The boards will have been sawn at 100mm, but then initial shrinkage, reconditioning, in-kiln shrinkage means you only end up with 95mm dry.
Standard flooring cover width from the same product is 85/90 with 90 becoming rarer.

As a little mill we do things a bit differently, but from a production mills viewpoint I totally get it: the country went to metric in 1970, and standard timber widths are in increments of 25mm... so we should be cutting 75/100/125/150/175/200/225/250/275/300. And when it shrinks well thats what timber does and the end user, be it builder, cabinet maker, or woodworker should deal with it and factor expected unit shrinkage into their calculations. Certainly thats what the Australian Standard suggests we should do: sawing tolerances are +5/-2 on green product before shrinkage occurs, and +2/-1 on dressed timber. Aint nothing in there about dry rough sawn product for the very reason that its a mid production stage where individual boards are at different sizes.

Different mills handle the shrinkage issue in different ways... but at the end of the day when I'm cutting Rose Gum which is my equivalent to Vic Ash/Tas Oak in terms of shrinkage and market utilisation (mostly flooring & framing with some cabinet and joinery demand) should I be sawing a 100 x 25 which can go direct to job as GOS framing or will make an 85x19 tongue and groove board... or should I be sawing a 107 x 32 so that the odd cabinet maker can pull out a 95 x 22 jointed DAR board?

Being small I have the luxury of "both". Sorta. My target size can be determined a bit by end use. So we cut imperial widths x 24mm for flooring stock but anything thats got the right characteristics to go to the cabinet/joinery trade I'll saw oversize. If you only want it to hit 90x19mm finished then you get it at the flooring stock price... if you want the extra meat to play with then you pay for the extra. Big processors cant do that, or more correctly they dont often deal face to face with individual customers and dont want the headaches of doing so. In the rest of the world 5/4 (five quarters of an inch, around 31mm) is a standard cabinet/joinery thickness for a reason.

Everyone wants something for nothing - me too. The question is "Are you prepared to pay extra for that oversize board, or are you going to buy extra standard dimension material to allow for unit shrinkage and dressing?" One of the issues I grapple with all the time is "market expectation vs cost of production". It's a variation of that old thing about good, fast, and cheap - pick any two.

As a general rule before purchasing timber, I plan to lose 10mm off the width and a 1/4" off the thickness when starting with rough sawn stock. so 4x1" = 90x19, 6x1" = 140x19, 6x2"=140x45 etc etc. Rarely does this present a problem for me.

Free stuff is good, I loved when they used to measure the length of the boards 1.2 1.5 1.8 so on and so forth. if I needed a length at 2.8, I didn't need to buy a 3.0 because many of the 2.7's will only be a touch short of 3.0

Originally Posted by Kuffy

As a general rule before purchasing timber, I plan to lose 10mm off the width and a 1/4" off the thickness when starting with rough sawn stock. so 4x1" = 90x19, 6x1" = 140x19, 6x2"=140x45 etc etc. Rarely does this present a problem for me.

Free stuff is good, I loved when they used to measure the length of the boards 1.2 1.5 1.8 so on and so forth. if I needed a length at 2.8, I didn't need to buy a 3.0 because many of the 2.7's will only be a touch short of 3.0

the length thing. *eyeroll* Country's been metric pretty much since I was born... why are we still selling boards in increments of 300mm???

I actually tried to change that. Shifted to increments of 500mm, figuring my life would get easier if I didnt have so many lengths as standard stock. That was a fail!!!
We're back doing the full range of 300mm increments, I cant even seem to shift to 600mm increments like a lot of them have, but part of that is me hating to cut 500mm off a good board to get to the nearest common length.

And "odd" widths too... (I still think of them as odd because I saw imperial widths to give me an oversaw) ... what is it in Australia that makes 125/175/225 so undesirable?

Sometimes I think we need to go one way or the other... either like Europe to standardised finished sizes where it gets tallied on what it will hit finished and the GOS size doesnt matter, or like the US to a full random tally where it goes into the pack at 9 3/8 wide if thats the board it wants to be and the end user gets to do what they like with it, including joint it to make it straight. What we do here is the worst of both those systems, not the best of it.

Enfield Guys post and JohnG reminds me I need to get some ash for the new year.

EG, do you buy locally? ... And John, I wouldn't mind havering a chat about ash and more blackbutt. I've used up the pallet load we bought a little while ago.

Firstly, thanks John. But, take the blackwood I use a fair bit of. 275 * 25 nearly always comes in at 280 or better, and mostly 27 thick, sometimes 28. Hoop at 250 is more often than not 255, sometimes 250 bare, sometimes 257. I'm not looking for free stuff. I calculate for machining losses. Yep sometimes I'm a bit tight but I can generally get what I want from most species I use with careful machining. My beef is paying for stuff I didn't get. Like I say most other species I buy are a mil or so over so it just seems strange to me that Vic Ash/ Tas Oak seem to be the exception. Personally, I don't think having an expectation of getting a 680 wide panel out of 7 sticks is a tall ask, nor is a 485 panel out of 5 sticks. Maybe I'm wrong!!

Yep I buy locally. I have a new dealer I will be using in the new year for the next lot. I've seen his stock and it seems to mostly be on the money or a couple over, i.e.: 100 - 105 and a true 25 thick. The only reason I didn't use them this time was logistics, money and time. Had a customer delay a significant payment so I was left with a last minute decision and couldn't afford the extra 2 hours to drive to deep on the southside of brisbane to use him. My blue I suppose.

I can get around the issue this time as I have enough material over to make up what I need. But, I does give me the absolute irrits.

I might look around at other options with regard to material for this product. I will be needing a constant reliable supply of consistent material that fits the bill. Paleish, straight grained hardwood that is relatively easy to work and can take a stain if required.

Originally Posted by Enfield Guy

Personally, I don't think having an expectation of getting a 680 wide panel out of 7 sticks is a tall ask, nor is a 485 panel out of 5 sticks. Maybe I'm wrong!!

Your expectations are through the roof. It's not impossible, but the expectation is waaaay too high to plan for before purchase.

I guess that I'm lucky. I call my supplier and order a specific number of board feet. They will usually ask how wide and what lengths will fit in my pick up truck. They also ask what grade. (Firsts and seconds or Select and better) I usually say it's going to be furniture.

I'll arrive and they use a fork lift to put in the back of my pick up truck, then they cut the steel bands. I've measured it as the bulk load and it usually seems to be about 3% more than I pay for.

Now if I could only get them to follow me home and unload the truck, life would be perfect.

Our Vic. Ash is always spot on, but we buy it DAR. Interestingly, it's DAR to rough sawn sizes (150x25 is 150x25 DAR etc)

Reminds me of my deck build that I did 10 years ago.
I ordered 100s of linear metres of 90x 19 kwila from local merchant and due to width of deck, each board run had 1 end to end butt join to another board. I was getting some difference in board width and on a deck , that shows up.

In some places I had laid a board and the one to be placed on the run was 10mm wider so you would see a noticeable step in the widths. I kept on taking boards back to get uniform width boards and luckily for me they exchanged them due to being a regular customer.

They did say that they were allowed to be up to 5mm difference from the intended 90mm width and still be within specs. This meant I got boards that tapered down to 85mm and the next board I tried to butt onto the end could be 95mm. I could have lived with a millimetre or 2 but 5 either way.

I can understand your frustration Bevan as I have seen your great work and you don't need added costs

Thanks Skot.

I'm not bothered by the cost I must say. In terms of the finished good price it really is insignificant. For me it is more about getting what you pay for, and the difference from other species purchased. Like I say, anything else I buy is either on the money width wise or a mil or so over, sometimes more. I have to do some visiting of a couple of merchants toward the middle of January. I'll be taking my tape and making notes.

Presently I'm coming toward the end of a kitchen reno in my own home, tiles to be grouted tomorrow and am keen to get back into the shed.

Cheers
Bevan