Thread: Old Bridge Beam

Originally Posted by dai sensei

A friend at work got given one of the bridge beams from an old bridge being demolished on the Gold Coast hinterland. He wanted a few slices off the end for the local RSL club, to make award plaques, but I could have what was left. The old beam is ~450mm x 300mm, and after taking 4x50 mm slices off, I still have >1m to play with A few holes filled with mud in the middle, but otherwise Ok.

I gave one of the slices a decent sand and then a coat of oil to see how it looked Very hard and heavy.

Anyone know the timber? I was thinking red iron-bark

Cheers

Neil, Neil Neil.

I only saw you on the week end. You under value my depth of knowledge, lol.

You only had to give me an offcut and I could have shown it to my friend who is a retired Department of Primary Industry Forestry Executive and he could have given you the answer immediately.

Any timbers used in the construction industry has to be approved by his Department, so I would suspect he or one of his fore bearers signed off on this species.


Pete

I've just been working with some Red Ironbark in log form and it looks remarkably similar. Can't confirm though, sorry.

-Scott.

Just to add, is it dense and very heavy? If so, I'd lean towards Ironbark.

Looks good.

Originally Posted by STAR

...I only saw you on the week end.......

Only got it tonight

Originally Posted by STAR

You only had to give me an offcut and I could have shown it to my friend who is a retired Department of Primary Industry Forestry Executive and he could have given you the answer immediately...

Yeh, but then I would have to give you a bit

Originally Posted by sjt

Just to add, is it dense and very heavy? If so, I'd lean towards Ironbark.

Sure is, the log ~1.3m long had to craned into the ute . Even the 660 seamed to struggle, although the odd gravel piece didn't help.

Originally Posted by Cliff Rogers

Looks good.

Yep. Not sure whether to slice it length wise into small slabs, or keep taking slices off. I will go over it though either way to check for more gravel.

Originally Posted by dai sensei

.....

Yep. Not sure whether to slice it length wise into small slabs, or keep taking slices off. I will go over it though either way to check for more gravel.

Try polishing a bit of the side grain & compare it to the end grain you have already done.

Work out which is easiest & which looks the best.

I fine that end grain takes more work to get it looking really nice.

Noice!!

I'd say Ironbark, particularly as it was a beam. My father and his brothers were sleeper and beam cutters down around Kyogle. All the bridge beams they cut were Ironbark and I can imagine the same applied up here.

I'd lay money on Budgeroo. Looks right and it was used in bridge construction all over Qld.

Definately not Budgeroo, I have plenty and love the stuff, this is waaaaay too hard and heavy. Wrong side of the hills for Budgeroo too, wish it was on this side , plenty of red ironbark though.

Neil, I use my nose a lot when it comes to identifying timer. Iron bark has a fairly distinctive smell when you cut it. It is also generally very identifiable if you plane/dress along the grain.

It did have a smell, but I cannot remember it now, but I did not recognise it (mind you I have never worked RIB anyway). Likewise, I only sanded the cross-cut slice.