Merbau or Rosa Rosa for furniture

**JackG** · 7th June 2002, 08:57 PM

Hi Guys,
I am planning to purchase some Merbau or Rosa rosa timber to make indoors furniture and I got a few questions. This timber is sold by a saw miller that harvests and mills his timber in Fiji and then sends it here.

1. I couldn’t find any info regarding Rosa rosa all I got so far is a couple of pictures and the word of the saw miller who claims that it looks a bit like Jarrah with a straighter grain and a slightly lighter colour. Any of you guys know this timber and how it compares to Jarrah ?

2. I know Merbau is used for Decking, Boats and Furniture but how good and suitable is it for indoors furniture? I plan to do relatively fine furniture (Well as fine as my ability permits) I am not looking for the rustic or country style so a certain timber stability is necessary.

3. The prices are about $1500 per m3 for 0.3 m3 or more for Select grade kiln dried, he will cut it (rough sawn) to the section I want. This is considerably cheaper than the prices I have found for local timber, does that pricing looks ok? Am I looking at the wrong local places? (eg: $4000 per m3 for Jarrah)

4. In a pervious post I saw Neil talking about grey spots being common on Merbau, is this a very common occurrence? Is it something particular to certain batches only or am I certain to have grey spots on every piece? As I have to order the timber from Fiji when it comes here I can't really go to check it, I'll have to take what comes in and it always is nicer to be prepared to surprises.

Thanks for your time

Jack

**Justin** · 7th June 2002, 09:20 PM

Hi Jack,

Whereabouts do you live ? I'm in Melbourne, and often see good pricing per cube in publications like the melbourne trading post for example. Even this particular section of the board has people advertising some nice timber for WAY less than 4 grand a cube.

If you check out alt.binaries.pictures.furniture there's a guy named Phil Laird that makes a lot of good stuff in W.A. From memory, in a recent post he said that he pays around 800 a cube for Jarrah and other aussie natives

I'm not sure if anyone can match those kind of "mates rates", put I guess my point is that you should shop around. Even getting some stuff delivered from interstate could be a possibility if you're prepared to buy in volume.

Cheers,

Justin.

**JackG** · 17th June 2002, 08:43 PM

Justin,
Thanks for you answer, I live in Sydney and I had a deeper look in the timber suppliers, unfortunatley there isnt many suppliers that sell furniture timber other than Radiata pine or mdf. I called over 20 suppliers from yellow pages plus the ones listed in the posts on this board and it seems only less than a handfull of them stock solid hardwood for furniture. It also seems that the quantity I afer (0.5 M3) is not enough to really get a substancial discount however one of the suppliers appeared to be more affordable than the others and proposed Jarrah at $2850 /m3.

Thanks you you feedback.

Jack

**soundman** · 17th June 2002, 10:37 PM

Have you had a chat with woodboat he may have someting of interest. He ofen has posts in buy sell swap.
cheers

**fxst** · 18th June 2002, 12:45 AM

Jack have you tried Mullumbimby woodworks?
mullumbimbywoodworks.com.au

[This message has been edited by (edited 18 June 2002).]

**zathras** · 18th June 2002, 08:28 AM

For those in Melbourne, I've found Provans in Clifton Hill to have a reasonable range. I personally have been getting F17 (1/2 price of the furniture grade) and selecting the best looking pieces.

Comes up a treat after going thru the thicknesser to clean them up a bit.

Cheers Ray

**Pete** · 18th June 2002, 12:40 PM

Jack,
Have you tried Trend timbers? They are out Windsor way. They stock a large supply of various timbers and I am told have reasonable prices.

Cheers,
Peter

**JackG** · 18th June 2002, 07:52 PM

Thanks for the replies,
The places I found In Sydney are Trend, Matthews and Anacote, the other suppliers did not carry stock they basically call you back after checking their supplier and are not very competitive.
I once bought from a non furniture specialised timber yard what they called Alpine ash, it appeared to be various timbers with the majority being Tassie Oak and Victorian Ash, it was not graded and was intended for structural applications, but after carefully picking the nice ones with similar grain and colour it did its job nicely. This time I am looking for a darker timber, probably some of you will not agree with me but I do not like to stain the timber at least not large pieces.

My next step will be to investigate the freight from other states as it appears that Sydney is not the best place for woodworkers to buy their supplies.

Anyway I got the approval to replace the old garage/shed by a larger one so the new projects are delayed for a few weeks or month

I now have plenty of time to find the timber.

This week a furniture manufacturer is closing a few doors from my place but they only have veneer for sale, maybe another unlucky business will have what I need in the next few weeks.

Jack

**Dod** · 4th July 2002, 04:24 PM

How do you log onto this site?alt.binaries.pictures.furniture
I couldn't make it work.
Thank you
Dod

Yip · 4th July 2002, 04:59 PM

HI DOD

It is a news group. You access it via Outlook Express, but you need to set up a new account to do so.
In OE click on Tools and then Accounts. An Internet Accounts window pops up. Click on the Mail tab (top) and then click add (on the right menu. Choose add News. Fill in all the gaps and away you go.

It will ask if you would like to download the newsgroups. Answer yes.

You can then paste:

alt.binaries.pictures.furniture into the search window and voila! Subscribe and you are there!!

Hope this helps.

------------------
I sell only Dremel Tools, Attachments and Accessories at the Scariest Sharpest prices in Australia.

http://www.ozemail.com.au/~year2000

**Darryn** · 17th July 2002, 03:25 AM

I have just bought marri over in Perth in feature grade for $700 per m³ I bought a pack of 0.3 m³. It was air then kiln dried and has some surface checking and was rough dressed at about 160-200 by 40 mm thick. The boards were all 1200 - 1800 long the majority around 1500. Some of it was crap and I have wasted a fair bit as I dressed it don to 20 amd 25 mm thick but I had enough to build a coffee table and also will have some left to make some shelves for a TV stand.
By Perth rates I got a very good buy high grade marri sells for $3000 m³ over here.

Darryn

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