Thread: Timber advise for a grandfather clock

Hi Waldo. Good to see you back. I think Walnut would be better, despite the expense. I've only seen one piece of Surian, and thought it would be too prone to dents for my purposes. Your mileage may vary, but given the time and effort you're going to put into it, I think it's worth using premium timber.

cheers,

ajw

If I was making one, I would use select Qld Maple or Maple Silkwood. Not just run of the mill stuff, but select boards.
That's my $0.20 worth.
Rgds,
Crocy.

So what's wrong with Aus Cedar?

Surian is extremely variable. It can be as fury as a persian cat, to as good as one can expect.
There is not a huge amount of timber in a grandfather clock, so maybe timber cost would not be that bigger issue. My first thought was Aus Cedar or Walnut.

The joinery I worked at was approached by a sales rep, touting Surian as a viable alternative to ARC. We bought two 4.8m packs for a trial run... and they had serious issues with movement. (Up to 50mm over a 2.4 length! I have photos somewhere...)

The rep replaced both packs but we had a whole range of other issues with the new stuff; everything from furriness after jointing through to odd defects throught the grain structure. There was just too much variation for us to consider switching, even though they offered us a significant discount which worked out to less than half the cost of ARC.

It would've been a false economy.

(BTW, G'day mate! Long time, no chat! )

Originally Posted by dai sensei

So what's wrong with Aus Cedar?

Gday mate,

been a long time.

costs for Red Cedar alone I’d say, if I could find any I’d need a house mortgage to buy some.

Been a long time Skew.

All the stuff you replied with confirms my hesitation to use Surian. Looks like Walnut. Now if I could get Queensland Walnut that’d be great, but looks like it’ll be US.

I thought about Qld Maple.

I actually scored a little bit at a deceased estate of an old woodworker I never knew but got invited in by the bloke responsible for on behalf of his family to clear out everything. I also scored Fijian Mahogany, New Guinea R/wood, heaps of tassie oak and other stuff, aside from tools and lots of other stuff, but I digress.

Im not sure about qld maple as it appears very light in colour.

Cherry is out as I don’t like the colour and I’m looking for something rich in colour.

Can I just say, .... If you choose a timber that's used for making musical instruments, you will get the best sound out of the chimes.
It will be well worth the little extra money. Musical instruments and gunstocks often use the same timbers.

If you use soft open grained timber you tend to muddy the chimes. ARC and surian are both in that class.
Too hard and tight and it can have funny acoustic echoes... heard an ironbark clock once and it was "off" .ok but not quite right.

Go with Blackwood or Qld Maple or similar. Plenty wood in the right density range in Australia. Support some domestic industry with your dollars instead of just lining an importers pockets will ya.

Is Surian Cedar the same thing as Toona calantis, or just Calantis? If so, I've not had the best results with it. It's so, so variable and can be extremely soft, brittle, coarse, and "furry" is an adjective I would give it. You can't scrape it at all, and you can't really plane it to a finish. It does polish very well though, I'll give it that.

I agree with the QLD Maple comments. I can't say anything bad about that wood. Some of the best out there. In my somewhat limited experience, it can be difficult to find, but if you can find good stuff it's truly world class.

QLD Maple is a good choice. Maton guitars use it in a lot of their instruments.

With the feedback around Queensland Maple and having the right properties, especially for musical instruments (include grandfather clocks in that?) and after doing some digging for pics of furniture in a Queensland Maple, I reckon that’s a damn good idea. Besides it’s a Queensland timber

Mathews Timber is my haunt in Melbourne, when I go there in a few weeks I’ll ask the bloke there about price p/m and also compare it to American Walnut $.

JohnG, do you have anything on the right density as a timber for grandfather clocks?