Thread: Help on Australian woods

Try the following web page.
It is an Australian company that specialises in exporting aussie timbers.


www.ausslab.com

regards

Thanks a lot Bruce.
A non specialised friend told me about the following woods, do you know wether theyr are australian? do you know them?

grey gum, red gum, myrte, jarah burl, banxia nuts, Manzanita, blackheart, vallee, grey gum burl, red gum burl

grey gum. Nothing really sold by this here, It may be available in QLD which is where the species is found, but it is not sold here in the south.
red gum Probably means River red gum E. camaldulensis, very nice red timber with good figure and comparably easy to work. Easily available.

myrte probably means Tasmanian myrtle, not a myrtle at all but a beech, pretty red/pink with some burl or other figure soft relative to many australian timbers. Pricey but very nice.

jarah burl- have not worked this one I am sorry, you have the species right. Red to dark red timber that is highly valued here.

banxia nuts- fun to play with but you need to think about what you want to do with them, they are not really wood and there is a lot of holes in them.

Manzanita-not australian as far as I am aware
blackheart- Blackheart sassafrass, expensive and rare, but very attractive.
vallee- I am guessing mallee here, burl is hard dense and varies in colour from red to brown, one of the most common burls available and can be very pretty.

grey gum burl- see above about grey gum,

red gum burl- One of the softer burls with resin pockets, very nice but entertaining to turn as the resin pockets can fly out of the lathe, or the piece shatter because you have opened a void. Very pretty and nice to work, I like it.


Others to think about would be Blackwood- Acacia melanoxylon, available in good quantity from numerous suppliers. Some of the desert timbers eg Beefwood, mulga, gidgee, etc, they are very hard and dense, nearly as dense as lignum vitae at 1100-1400kg/m3. Have a look at this site,

gondwana or contact
Tasman or Gypsyt on this BB, also try
Island specialty
Hope that helps

I built a table for a client a few years ago. She sourced the timber from Ausslab, who sold it to her as seasoned and ready to use. I built the table and delivered it, client was happy. A few months later she rang to say that one corner was lifting badly. Went and had a look and one corner had lifted up (just like bending the corner of a page up) by about 30mm! None of my glue joints had opened or moved and I could only assume that the timber wasn't, in fact, seasoned. I later spoke to one of the millers who supplies Ausslab (cabinetmaker by trade) who assured me that the timber - Rose Gum was known to move a lot until it had reached EMC and that he had, in fact, milled a fair bit of it for Ausslab about 9 months prior. No way of knowing whether the stuff I used had only been milled 9 months prior or had been around for 2 years or more, but judging from the amount of movement the former seems more likely.

Now, I'm not saying that you'll have the same experience, or that the timber was knowingly sold unseasoned (but I would've thought that a moisture meter would've been used to check before sale). This may have been a one off bit of misfortune. So buy where ever you will, just passing on my personal experience. Unless you want to use bark to bark slabs you may find it cheaper to buy timber in board form. If it's rainforest species you're after then Wren Timbers in Cairns can help you.

Where is your container being packed? This would affect where you'd source your timber from to some degree. I could source you some Silky Oak, Queensland Maple and Queensland Walnut relatively cheap but freight to where ever your container is would make it a lot more expensive. Or maybe you could take up Bruce's offer and get a pack of mixed hardwood. (Look for the current thread "putting my money where my mouth is")

Mick

some pics.
1 tiger stripe myrtle
2 sassafras.
3 banxsia.

i have tried air drying most local species cairns area, some for up to 20 years ,and if you wish to do fine joinery ,i would reccomend you get your wood kiln dried before use ,and or check with a moisture meter, some species are quite stable ,but some will move if not coated both sides or left in the sun .trees are designed to keep leaves off the ground. good luck and enjoy the wood

The AussieWood Database may also give you some ideas. It's a great little site.

Database

hi thanks for the site ,namtrak,is a great place to fid info on australian woods ,cheers bob

Wild Wood Galleries from Tasmania had a good selection of timber for sale at the Brisbane show. I don't have a website but the facsimile number is 03 6443 4452 plus ISD numbers.

Originally Posted by bobsreturn2003

i have tried air drying most local species cairns area, some for up to 20 years ,and if you wish to do fine joinery ,i would reccomend you get your wood kiln dried before use ,and or check with a moisture meter, some species are quite stable ,but some will move if not coated both sides or left in the sun .trees are designed to keep leaves off the ground. good luck and enjoy the wood

A mate in tassi dries his smaller pieces by putting them in a black plastic bag
seals it and leaves it in the sun all day , at sundown takes the wood out ,turns the bag inside out replaces the wood and seals the bag
He then does this every day until wood is dry enough. Check with meter.
I tried with some King billy and myrtle with some success.
Only good for smaller bits though , turning blanks etc...



The trouble with life is there's no background music.

Another place that would be worth a look is Brad's Burls if you are wanting to work with some amazing timbers. I was at the Brisbane show and got some very nice red and brown mallee as well as coolibah burls and purple gidgee.

www.bradsburls.com.au

It might be worth considering some common "comodity " timbers such as " tasmainain oak" & a bit of "KD hardwood" as fillers.
They are both relativly cheap & good value.
Both are general "names" & could be a number of varieties.
KD hardwood framing is a cheap way of getting some aussie timber.
cheers

You are all fantastic!!!
I am sorry of the time zone difference which makes it hard to be on line together, but THANKS for this help, thanks for the pics and I think I already love the tiger stripe myrtle and the sassafras.<O</O

I am going to explore all the links you have been posting<O</O

To orient you better on where to buy the wood from, the material I a ordering is from Vicmarc. I have no clue where it is in Australia</ST1, only the address says: Clonarf 4019 Qld. <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com[img] /><st1:country-region><?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = [/img]<st1lace Australia</st1:country-region>. Is that Queesland? (I am really ashamed of not knowing and I hope you will forgive me for not having better learned geography when I was of school age) <O</O

Clontarf is in Queensland, just a little north of Brisbane (Queensland's capital city).


regards