Thread: Cabinet making with Spotted gum

Hi Cathy, and welcome to the forum. Many Australian hardwoods make good furniture timber and in recent years they have become quite popular. Spotted gum is certainly one of them. Probably the most important factor for furniture timbers is moisture content. If the timber is not properly dried, shrinkage and distortion become a problem. Weight is also a major factor and spotty isnt light. Design needs to take this into account. Workability with hand tools can be an issue as the grain is not as straight as many other hardwoods. It does work well on machines.

Thanks Rustynail for your reply. He is certainly taking the weight into account with his design, and as we bought planks of this wood from the timberyard, he will be running it through a thicknesser(?!) We have been told that if he gets this done hopefully next week, he will have to wrap it all together tightly and weigh it down to avoid cupping, as of course school doesn't start back until the end of the month, and he is not allowed to doanything else. The school did not have the thicknesser bit last term. Will it cause more problems to do it earlier? Should we wait until just before school starts? Thanks for your time, Cathy

if the timber is kept in a area that is away from direct sunlight and high M/C / RH you should have no worries about the timber cupping.

you can use tie down straps to bundle the timber tight together rather than leaving them lose

Many years ago I run The AUSTRALIAN hardwood furniture company. The main challenges we faced with spotted gum was Movement and Warpage, also glue up can be a problem as it is fairly resistance to many glue there was an AV Techics one that was OK or the Old standby Sellys 308 (3 part mix).

OH and he'll find this out for himself but the splinters reeeeeallly hurt

Good Luck with it. The other side of the con is that it does look spectacular in furniture.


cheers


Steve

Thanks Gaza and Steve - it is great to have some of those handy tips, particularly about the glue and storage. Now he just needs to be able to start it - very frustrating, have had the wood since September, but teacher not at school most of term (marking HSC!!) Cheers, Cathy

No worries,

Cathy, I think the other glue was AV251 from syntec.

But whichever glue he uses it must be good for joining greasy timber.


Cheers


Steve

unforntunately selly's 308 has been discontinued,much to my annoyance

Thanks guys, more useful information! Cheers, Cathy

Cathy, I would hold off as long as possible with the dressing. The climatic conditions in Sydney at the moment are less than ideal. Most of my work is in Australian cedar, which is far more stable than spotty and I wont be working timber until things improve. If time is a limiting factor, the young bloke may need to look at other areas of the project that are not so weather dependant.

Cathy,

I recently finished a natural edge coffee table in spotted gum, as a releatively new wood worker a couple of things I noticed were it is hard so machining (thicknising) was a problem with a bit of teaarout and snipe but this should be less of a problem from a commercial shop as they should have nice sharp blades.

I hand planed the legs and was pleasently suprised how well that worked, leaving a very nice finish, I found sanding the top even with belt sander to be harder work.

One area that was problamatic was I made some small tenons to fit rails to the table legs (tenons where 6mm thick). For the exercise I cut the mortices by hand and found the wood could be brittle so if you levered too hard when cutting the mortice you could fracture out a piece of wood from the end of the leg.

For glue I just used pva and it appeares to be Ok so far

The wood does look stuning

Good luck

Cathy
I have used Spotted Gum on a few pieces (Hall Table, Coffe Table, Bedside Tables). It is a stately timber and will last a lifetime. It is heavy as you know, so design is critical, minimise large sections and try to minimise overall dimensions. The timber is close grained and machines well (with sharp blades). An advantage of its hardness and density is that you can work it to fine tolerances (providing it is dry and seasoned).
Although it may not be the purists choice - on Spotted gum I use "Weldbond" glue (neat), it has never failed me. I used Feast Wason Foorseal (Tung Oil base) as a finish.
Good Luck
Barry

I love Spotted Gum, yes it's heavy, yes it blunts your tools quick (but Cooktown Ironwood does it quicker) but it gets some beautiful colour from beautiful orange to deep rich brown and equally gets some beautiful figure and fiddleback running through it. The grain can quickly change direction which can be an issue with a thicky, if you have such a piece of timber it;s beter to get it put through a drum sander - unless you have a thicky with helix heads on it.

I made this https://www.woodworkforums.com/f40/wa...project-75823/ out of the stuff. I used Titebond III and only ever had one issue of the glue letting go on a panel prior to assembly, but that was on the day a few years ago when we had the nasty bushfires up Kinglake way etc. and it reached 60º+ in the shed.

Have to agree with you waldo about the beauty of spotted, here is a table i recently finished.
Hardwood.

Love the grain.