Thread: Timber Post (Internal)

Merbau should be OK inside? But it is a dark brown, as it jarrah.
What colour are you after?
Light: blackbutt or tallowood or white mahogany
Red: Red mahogany or red gum, or even bluegum or rosewood or red cedar
Light brown: ironbark, greygum,
pink: flooded gum

Best termite wise is red mahogany I think, but if you aren't placing in the ground, any timber should be OK

We don't really want anything to red, dark brown is what we'd like.
Thats sort of why I was looking at Merbau, Spotted Gum or Northern Box.

Just don't really know how many problems they are going to give me with splitting and bleeding

As you say termites are a worry for you have considered useing steel all the way down to your footing and then boxing it in with some timber,say tassie oak and staining that to your likeing

merbau won't split and it will only bleed if wet, if inside it should be fine unless in an area where steam may condense. it is fire rated, don't know about termites. What about jarrah?
Merbau is from PNG.
Spoted gum is not really dark brown, more light coloured
Greg

If you want to make a feature of the post you would go dark. If you want it to fade into the background go light. As you prefer browns to reds look at Tallowwood, White mahogany, Turpentine, Blackbutt, Spottedgum. Speed of drying will determin the amount of surface checking. Fuel fires and air conditioning can wreak havock. Tallow wood or turpentine are probably the most stable.

I'm hoping to get to a timber yard that has a variety of hardwoods over the next week or so then I'll be able to get a look at what is around locally and get a better feel for timber colours.
Colours must vary a lot depending how green the timber is, I'll have to trust the advice I get from the person trying to sell it to me.

I would look at Murray pine or Cypress pine as well.

have you thought about south aust blue gum ( Eucalyptus leucoxylon ) not quite as dark as red gum - jarrah, Structuraland local.

Merbau (or Kwilla or Vesi depending on where you come from) is fine indoors. I built my bed from it, amongst other things. See here for my bed, the posts are solid 130x130.

I did a vanity & some panelling around the bath, in Kwila - didn't know about its little trick when wet - found out about that when it was used for the railing on the deck, & we had a big storm the day the rails were installed. 'Bleeding' is an understatement - this stuff gushes!

The vanity & panelling were all well-coated in poly, and gave no trouble whatever despite heavy use of that bathroom by 4 offspring, so I would think it should be perfectly safe in the kitchen if coated with something suitable. It's a nice wood, but there are plenty of suitable local species, too, as suggested....

Cheers,