Thread: Huon Pine and Myrtle

Myrtle is easy to get and is a beautiful timber to work with. It's about $3500/cubic metre from Mathews Timber- for your desk, perhaps your looking at a couple of hundred bucks. You'll probably get a better price from some of our Tasmanian forum members. Myrtle looks great, too.

IMHO, a whole desk in BH Sass would be too much, but it could look good in the door panels.

I suspect Huon would be a lot more expensive, & while it smells beautiful, it's not my favourite for big pieces of furniture - that's just personal opinion though.

Originally Posted by laxation

Is it pretty much guaranteed it will come out like this:
http://www.woodworker.com.au/images/...ksassafras.gif

Computer says NO..........cough!!

Al

Originally Posted by ozwinner

Computer says NO..........cough!!

So that grain etc. is rare then?

Originally Posted by AlexS

IMHO, a whole desk in BH Sass would be too much, but it could look good in the door panels.

I suspect Huon would be a lot more expensive, & while it smells beautiful, it's not my favourite for big pieces of furniture - that's just personal opinion though.

Thanks. For the furniture, I will not be doing the whole thing in one type of wood, but having a light and dark wood. I dont want one type of wood to be too overpowering.

You can get BH Sass like that, but I dont think there is much of it around.

Al

Go easy on the proportion of one wood to another. I'd suggest major panels (eg top, sides, drawer frames, etc from one type, with maybe an insert panel of another wood in the drawer fronts, and/or possibly as an inlay, in from the edge, on the top.

This is the preferred design. I thought I would put in the Huon from the picture... looks a little better



Thoughts?

That'd look nice, but Huon's very soft and prone to marking.

Perhaps recessing the Huon top by a few mm and having a glass inlay to protect it would fit in with the design?

That sounds like a great idea. I was looking to find a way to incorporate glass into the top somehow, this seems perfect.
Nice one

Hi

Ive got a heap of blackheart sass I bought for a new kitchen table.

After dressing the legs I worked out it would be just way too psychadelic to sit at.

Its great timber in moderation, like a ninth island pinot, to savour on those special occasions.

Myrtle with huon features would be xlnt. Make sure the myrtle is cut from the same tree otherwise you may get a high variation in colour from red through to a light pink.

"Tasman" had a heap of myrtle in storage from memory and "KevM" may also have some. Send them a pm.

I reckon all myrtle with huon accents!

cheers

dazzler

yaha looks like fun, if u cant get what u need in melbourne then get it from tassie, usual sources, Island specialty at geevston, Morrisons in strahan, Cockatoo timbers in Stanley or Brittons at Smithton, heaps of other sources as well

www.aussieburls.com

good luck

re your design
to me that top looks awfully prone to blowing itself apart through timber movement.
will the Huon Pine be in the form of a solid wood panel or a laminate on MDF or some other stable substrate?
similarly for the drawer fronts – will they be solid or laminated?


Ian

At the moment, it most likely be in strips of wood, laminated together.
WOuld that be bad?

Originally Posted by laxation

At the moment, it most likely be in strips of wood, laminated together.
WOuld that be bad?

laxation, u r probably dealing with issues different in terms from just how the wood looks, such as how it behaves in terms of hardness or movement...
is the desk to be well used...or looked at...a lot of pro makers thes edays seem to use MDF or good ply with veneers for the figured timbers...this gives structural strenght as well as using less of the valuable timbers, hence some laminating and veneering skills are needed along side the building and joinery skills...Glass is useful but u probably need to be careful where its used in strenght terms..

have fun..

cheeeeeeers

laxation
this is how I would approach making your design

The top would consist of thin (say 2mm thick) bandsawn huon pine venner glued onto piece of good quality 19mm ply. I'd arrange the veeneers so that the grain was parallel with the long axis of the top with butt joints as for solid timber. If the grain was really prounced I'd try to book matched the veneers. I'd veneer both the top and bottom in huon pine, but if you're looking to reduce costs I suggest a less expensive sawn veneer for the underside. I'd aim for the panel to finish about 22mm thick. The panel would then be cut to fit within a precisely cut rebate on the inside the myrtle "picture frame".

As for the doors, I think they would look better if the glass were replaced with a ply panel (say 9mm thick) venerered with huon pine similar to the top — I'd use huon pine on both the inside and outside of the doors.


ian