Thread: What Australian timber should I use

What is the plan for?

You could always buy Maple and Cherry. Pretty easy to get here too.

Are you looking for timber with similar properties (stability, workability, strength, hardness, etc) or color/tone or character/grain? If all three, then I suggest Maple and Cherry .

Cheers, Dom

Yes Dom similar properties etc. I wasn't aware I could buy either timbers here or at least expected them to be expensive.

I'm partial to Myrtle as a substitute for cherry

Hard maple and Cherry aren't overly expensive, around $3500 to $5000 per cubic m. Blackwood, a nice Aus timber, for example, is generally a bit more than that at around $5500, when I last bought some. Stuff like Tassie oak is much cheaper, but I find it's generally very unstable and full of internal stresses. I'm not familiar enough with many native timbers to suggest much.

I think it comes down to the specific project / application and asthetic required tho.

Cheers, Dom

Rock Maple is readily available here - a lovely timber to work with. I've never seen much Cherry at the suppliers I frequent, but as someone else suggested Myrtle would be a good substitute (and easier to find). Just be aware that the lovely creamy white colour of Rock Maple tend to yellow over time, depending on what finish you use on it.

Cherry looks nice, but does change colour drastically over the first 6-12 months on exposure to light. Very important to make sure it gets even exposure to light over this period, including not putting anything on tables, etc. We have some commercially made Cherry furniture which is now a lovely toffee colour, but it looked nothing like that when purchased.

and Rock Maple with fiddleback figure is lovely stuff if you ever see any .

New Zealand beech is an alternative.

Cherry doesn't seem to be common here, but Global Hardwoods in Melbourne stocks both Cherry and Maple if you want.

I've tried NZ Beech, but wasn't that impressed. Tends to be quite knotty, and the colour variations were all over the place (whitish through pink to almost red). I believe that (like Tassie Oak), "NZ Beech" is a marketing term applied to timber from a variety of closely related species....unless you're thinking of something else? I also found quite a variation in density between boards purchased 6 months apart from the same supplier, all of them apparently NZ Beech.

Interested to know if it is used much in commercial furniture making? I guess if you purchase all you require in one lot, the issues I mention above wouldn't be such a problem.

The stuff we used to get was just sold as NZ Beech and was pale to dark pink. We bought it by the pack in 6 x 1 1/2 and 3 x 3. It was generally clear from defects, but you'll always get a bad stick here and there. Ditto for colour variation. The supply of it dried up and we found an alternative called Maple Beech, similar but more whitish than pink with darker growth rings. Not as nice as the old stuff.

Haven't seen it in probably 7 years though, the chairs we used to make from it don't seem to be "in" anymore, so maybe the quality has dropped since then.

American Cherry and Rock Maple can be purchased from Matthews timber

Cherry and Hard Maple are the normal "upper middle market" species for US cabinet and joinery applications. Aint nothing special about either of them - not saying either is at all bad (cherry is pretty soft but so are plenty other species) - but theres nothing flash about them either.

Go domestic. All you do when you buy imported species is line the pockets of the middle man somewhere. And as you can see above "everyone" is using the same thing.

So whats the project?
And where are you located?
And what kind of colour range were you thinking about using?

Lets just see if we can come up with a local alternative.

Sheoak and blue gum.

Originally Posted by 44Ronin

What is the plan for?

Having a plan, or idea, of what you are trying to accomplish would certainly help.