Thread: Wood

All depends if you have any experience in woodturning. If this is all new to you I would suggest that it would be cheaper & better to practice on cheap pine or hardwood offcuts etc from a local woodyard/timber supplier. Proper timberyards (as opposed to Bunnings etc) usually have a bin of offcuts that can be had for nix or very cheap.

The ossie woodworking mags have address of speciality timber resellers.

If you still want to spend up big; you could always buy the pine & send me the leftover dollars.LOL.

I think you will find that the general concencus would be to use the cheap wood for making chips; and when your work can do justice to some nice timbers; go ahead & obtain/buy some nice pieces & make some heirlooms.

Hope this helps a bit.

Ken

Wood that you can get free is particularly good for turning practice. Any pine will do you good and once you are getting fair results, look at the places that sell fire wood. It is usually harder than pine and will give you good practice.

Roger also make yourself known to your local parks and gardens Foreman for tree trimmings which they often discard as rubbish!

Your local council will also let you pick up when they verge pick-up days where folk have trimmed their trees/ shrubs etc.

HTH
Cheers

As a relative newbie I would agree with the others and go for the cheap wood, no point buying the good stuff just to kill.

Another idea for the long term if you have storage space is to get to know a pro tree lopper as they can be a good source for trees that are coming down.
Cheers
Paul

When you are ready for better timbers, 2 places to try are :

Anagote Timbers in Marrickville

Brad's Burls in Peakhurst

The other thing do to it keep eye out at your local Carbatec or similiar.
I was in today wanting some sheoak for some pens and instead of buying the good stuff found a peice in the oddments box that looks like it was an offcut from the original milling.

Only $2 and I should get about 10 pens out of it if cut correctly.
Cheers.
Paul

Also try offcuts from fencing jobs - cypress and redgum (though watch out for cracks, and for cypress dust). Wood recylcers will often have bits of jarrah and redgum cheaper than elsewhere.

In general though I recommend you get seasoned easy turning blanks from a specialist - you want everything on your side to begin with, so you get a real kick out of the results ;-}

Hi there. Hudsons at leumeah sells offcuts cheap. Pine lenghts under a meter go for 50cents and they have a bin out back with allsorts for free. Might be worth a look.

Hi Babytoolman
If you have a local woodturning club,(which you should consider joining anyway, for the amount of expertise they can pass on to you) I think you will find thay have access to a large range of supplier's of wood usually at a very good price (sometimes free). Have fun

Rod