Thread: Sourcing timber for wbench

Mmm, nice - do you recall any details about the bloke in the west (assuming you mean Melb) - was it a garden supplies mob or a scrap mob or specialist in recycling sleepers/structural stuff?

Originally Posted by BobL

Be careful of those with crack, they may have small bluemetal chips buried inside them which you cannot detect with a metal detector.

i like the look of crack sometimes , but what is this blue metal and where does it come from?

Originally Posted by Bitslong

i like the look of crack sometimes , but what is this blue metal and where does it come from?

Large bluemetal chips are commonly placed around sleepers but they are not all large. As the trains roll by or people walk on the tracks the blue metal breaks up and small chips can lodge deep in cracks. I have see a small chip take a nice chunk out of some expensive thicknesser blades.

Originally Posted by Bitslong

I'm down in Melb (west) and trying to find a good source of timber (on a budget - f/t student).
I've looked aorund (online) at the local timber recyclers (Shiver M.T., Nullabor, WoodZoo etc) and they seem to be more expensive than some non-recycled stuff.

A local mob have 125x125 x 2400 Karri posts (fencing) for $20 which I thought sounded good - similar in price to HW from Bunnies but when I calculated the m^3 price it worked out to be $53,333 cubic/m!!t

If I got 4 for the top is it feasible to split them on a tablesaw into half (2400 x 125 x ~60)? Would warping occur?

Karri? Fencing?

Listen to the <chomp> <chomp> <chomp> as the termites eat it.

Just to Add to BobL´s comments. Railway sleepers are a dilema. Often cheap enough but then exénsive to resaw because of reasons already stated.

Might be worth blasting them with a high pressure water cleaner , or even compressed air, but you won´t remove everything.

I would counsel aginst the use if particle board or Mdf for anything to do with a workbench other than drawers or panelling to hang things on.

Have you tried demokition yards and recyclers to source your timber?

Originally Posted by artme

Just to Add to BobL´s comments. Railway sleepers are a dilema. Often cheap enough but then exénsive to resaw because of reasons already stated.

Might be worth blasting them with a high pressure water cleaner , or even compressed air, but you won´t remove everything.

I would counsel aginst the use if particle board or Mdf for anything to do with a workbench other than drawers or panelling to hang things on.

Have you tried demokition yards and recyclers to source your timber?

Recyclers appear to be $$$$ but there is a mob (Yarra Timber?) that I'll call.

Why the aversions to MDF? I'm aware of liquid + swelling.