Thread: Furniture Grade Pine -Yes or No

Furniture grade or "clear" pine doen't have any knots.

If you're going to paint it then I'd just go with the crapiata that you can buy at Bunnies.

Furniture Grade is the industry classification for the grading of the timber due to the amount of defects. Typically is no pith or wane and no more than 5-6 defects per 16ft of board. (At least that is what it is for the two mills I used to deal with.)

"Normal" I'm not sure about, there is no normal as such. The stuff at Bunnies (normal??) would be closer to blue grade which is one below furniture. It can typically have pith and wane and a few more knots in the board.

Even if being painted, I'd use f/grade in preference to "normal" pine for a bookcase... if only for less problems with movement.

Having been looking around at radiata quite a bit lately (don't ask why) I'd say Bunnies pine is as low as you can go... M10's stuff is better quality for the same price.

Bunnies(or any supermarket mob) is merchant grade(lowest), they buy it in packs240~290 wide and get it cut, then sell it to you at higher than clears grade price!

I buy in 3m/290/19 packs from a proper wood merchant, say if Im making raised panels for doors I pick out the best bits for strenght(clears, no or little knots)for frame work and the rest is used for feature where strenght is not so critical ie; the panels.
I do get some bits that have spilts or pith, I cut the crap out and use the left overs for glue blocks, jig making etc etc.

Yep... I agree with what he said.

A lot of the clearer pine that bunnies sell is not even Australian. They import phenomenal amounts of NZ pine. Not sure the true name but it looks like a cross between hoop and radiata, works like radiata but has no smell. And the NZ stuff has lots less knots in it too. I've seen a lot of it at schools because since the NZ govt subsidise timber exports its cheaper.

Can't say I've ever seen clear pine in Bunnies.

It always has knots.

There's a big M10 near me that has a timber yard attached. Their crapiata is better quality than Bunnies. So I agree with Skew there.

It's still not clear grade though.

I have seen some here in Toowoomba, Bloody expensive though.

For decent pine I do agree, go to a proper timber yard.

I can't say I've seen furniture grade anything in Bunnies, or any other "supermart" for that matter. Not even their furniture... My apologies if it seemed I was inferring otherwise; a good timber yard is always the best bet provided you can get to one!

But even between the supermarts, the timber quality varies greatly and it is well worth the effort of shopping around. Frankly, how the Bunnies stuff makes it thu the milling process without a date with a chipper I honestly don't know. Merchant grade? HA!

And at my Bunnies barn they don't even store it horizontal. It all leans against the walls in the racks.

At least the M10 timber yard has it stored horizontal.

At the end of the day it's still crapiata though. One step above MDF.

Or 1 step below - at least MDF is flat!

I work for a big mill whose biggest customer is bunnies (our brand would be on most of the sticks you see there) Consider that bunnies may not ask for the best stuff but ask for the best price. It's not that we cant' make it, in fact we used to have a small furniture grade mill near the big site that pumped out clear 290's & 190's but it's now shutdown (unfortunate for me, used to get the stuff cheap ) We also used to run a waco moulder 2 shifts per day pumping out matchlining....no more

Our grade logs (550mm diamter) are now being cut into 300x50 & graded for salts treatment both on density & visual grading & they're a nice looking board, except soon it will be green & super $$$$ for pine.

So I'm not defending or bashing either our company or bunnies. If there was more demand for furniture grade than salts then we would/could supply it.

Reg

A lot of the clearer pine that bunnies sell is not even Australian. They import phenomenal amounts of NZ pine. Not sure the true name but it looks like a cross between hoop and radiata, works like radiata but has no smell. And the NZ stuff has lots less knots in it too. I've seen a lot of it at schools because since the NZ govt subsidise timber exports its cheaper.

Probably kiln-dried radiata, of which NZ has plenty.

NEW ZEALAND’S PLANTED FORESTS

New Zealand’s 1.8 million hectares of planted production forests are:

• dominated by one species - radiata pine accounts for 90 percent
• young, with 60 percent being 15 years old or younger
• fast growing - the average time to harvest is 27 years
• intensively tended - 70 percent of the resource has been pruned to produce knot-free timber
• managed in recognition of the inter-dependence of ecological, economic and social sustainability principles under an accord between industry and environmental groups, and according to principles for commercial forest management in New Zealand that are based on the accord
• concentrated in the central North Island. Other major forest growing areas include Northland, East Coast and Hawkes Bay, Nelson and Marlborough, and Otago and Southland
• mainly owned by the private sector - central Government now owns only 3 percent of New Zealand’s planted forest estate.

New Zealand’s planted forest area is expanding. The provisional estimate of new planting for 2000 is 37 400 hectares. The average annual area of new planting for the five years from 1995 to 1999 was 62 000 hectares.
Forests planted since 1992 will have their greatest effect on wood supply after 2020. Until then, past rates of new planting will determine potential supply. New Zealand’s wood supply is forecast to increase from the actual harvest of 18.5 million cubic metres (provisional) for the year ended March 2001, to around 31 million cubic metres by 2010, a 68 percent increase.

from http://www.maf.govt.nz/forestry/publ...0THE%20PRODUCT
As far as I know, there are no subsidies, however..... I wish!!

The NZ pine will be Radiata, but it's been slectively bred for timber production. The tree grows in a much different form to the original stock, straighter and less branches. It will also usually be pruned fol clearwood production, where all the branches are removed from the first 5-8m as the tree grows. After 30 years it will produce a 1m dia log thats 90% clear timber. Thats the good stuff. The cheap stuff is cut from near the core of the log, from unpruned or top logs, and it's got all the features we love to hate

And I dont think ANYONE gets subsidies out of the NZ Govt these days

There is however a LOT of pine trees, they grow FAST and the loggers / mills are very efficient at processing it.

Furniture Grade and Radiata still dont seem to go thogether though

Cheers

Ian