Thread: latest silky oak restoration

Nice - simple lines.
Good one.

Silky is nice to work with, I like the grain, but the grain can be too busy sometimes on large pieces.

Al

Nicely done.

Friends of ours from Atherton got given a house full of furniture (dressers, cupboards, tables, chairs etc) when they bought their house up there. About 5 years later they paid $700 to have it all stripped back and finished. I reckon they have about a dozen family heirlooms now!!

Stunning looking work.

I like it a lot. Well done. The silky oak is a beautiful wood

S'cuse me I'm a none wood type person but is that grain common to silky oak or is it only the best pieces of timber that present it? Is that what is refered to as fiddleback grain?

Oh. And is silky oak a common timber? Where does it come from?

Originally Posted by ChasingRainbows

Oh. And is silky oak a common timber? Where does it come from?

There are a few varieties of the timber( grevillea robusta) depending where it is grown. It is now rare but has been planted in suburbs and back yards and occassionaly you read on these pages about someone who has a whole tree.
You may recognise it as the tree that has the yellowy orange flowers that come out at about the same time as jacarandas- quite stunning when a whole suburb is planted that way.
Hope you get to make something out of it some time.

[quote=ChasingRainbows]S'cuse me I'm a none wood type person but is that grain common to silky oak or is it only the best pieces of timber that present it? Is that what is refered to as fiddleback grain?[/q

All silky oak can have that grain if it's what is called 'quarter-cut' (not called fiddleback), where the rays of the timber are shown, but since cutting that way produces a bit of waste most silky oak was cut normally instead. The grain is plainer then, but I still like it as well.

One of the authorities cites something like 12 species that go under the common name of silky oak.

There's plenty planted in parks and suburban gardens down here in Melbourne.

Originally Posted by rsser

One of the authorities cites something like 12 species that go under the common name of silky oak.

There's plenty planted in parks and suburban gardens down here in Melbourne.

Hmmmm. Methinks I need a couple of ID photos of said species.

The strange noise in the middle of the night will be a furtive Auld Bassoon lopping off some stock with a chainsaw:eek:

Does anyone make a cordless electric chainsaw?

From memory, there's a large Grevillea Robust in the Melbourne botanical gardens. While there's up to 12 species that may be called Silky Oak, generally only two are marketed as such: Grevillea Robusta (southern Silky Oak) and Cardwellia Sublimis (Northern Silky Oak). NSO is generally a bit of a deeper colour and has more striking medullary rays.

Mick (collector of Silky Oak )

Looks brand new.