Native woods in Northern Ireland

[Anonymous]

This is my first post here, although I have been a bit of a lurker for a while, so hello to all.

I am based in Northern Ireland and I was trying to find out where local chaps and chapesses buy their wood. I have recently started using native woods from Clark Cunningham near Crossgar. I have used quite a bit of ash and recently a bit of elm and sycamore. Is there anywhere else in NI that supplies native woods? Or indeed any woodworking specialists?

See www.myrddin.co.uk/wood.htm for an example of stuff made with the wood. If you go to the end of the pictures you can see my gorgeous/handsome assistant .

Gareth

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Gareth and welcome to the forum

We have a few Irish members and I'm sure one of them will be along to help soon :wink:

 

[trevtheturner]

Can't help you with suppliers, Gareth, but welcome to the Forum.

Brilliant work in your pics. - and a sense of humour to match, too. :lol: :lol:

Cheers,

Trev.

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Gareth

Welcome to the forum. I love your box and helper.

Someone will be along to help soon.

Cheers
Neil

 

[Adam]

Howdy! Welcome to the madhouse. I'm sure this has come up before..

Very old posts but...

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=520

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=825

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=109

Might give you a few pointers

Adam

 

[Chris Knight]

Hi Gareth,

Nice looking work! I guess you used the Leigh jig for the fancy joints? How did you clamp the corner posts when cutting them?

 

[DaveL]

Hi Gareth,

Welcome to the forum.

Nice work, do those joints take long the cut?

Hopefully the stripes are not catching. :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Chris

Your right I did use the Leigh isoloc.

How did you clamp the corner posts when cutting them?

Lucky for me a picture is worth a thousand words. www.myrddin.co.uk/wood.htm

The baton to stop the post moving down is crucial. Before I fitted that there were a few choice words on a couple of occasions. :shock:

Gareth

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Dave,

Nice work, do those joints take long the cut?

It depends on your definition of long! The toybox in native ash was the third I have made and to be honest I was fed up with cutting the joints, but then I have the attention span of a goldfish on dope. Unfortunately I have two new nieces and I can't stop now.

In effect you are cutting 8 joints for the box, two for each corner. I find it very stressful, it is not very interesting but hard work, messy, noisy and you have to concentrate. I can do all the posts in one evening and then cut the sides in another evening. That is proably about 3 hours each night with the router. Not very pleasant.

Gareth

 

[Noel]

Hi Gareth,

Good to see a fellow WW from this part of the world. Presume you're down in Down?
Can't really help you on the native hardwood source, hardwood is so scarce up here I'm not too worried about the origin. Other than the threads Adam mentioned I think you've done well finding the Crossgar outlet.
Boxes look really well.

Noel

 

[Neil]

Hi Gareth, welcome to the forum

Re: native hardwoods (Noely, you might find this of interest too) - If you are prepared to venture down south, thanks to forum member CYC I've just come across this site http://www.irishwoods.com - it is quite a small venture at the moment with very low stock levels, but they have some nice native species and the prices look pretty good to me. Their environmental policy appeals to me greatly as well, and traceability is excellent, down to being able to show you a picture of the tree which the boards were cut from.

The last time I looked, they had a few boards of Elm...

Cheers,

Neil

 

[PJ]

Gareth, the only other sources for native timber that I know of is A guy outside Clougher, but he sells mostly beech and a guy just past Mallusk who sells mostly turning wood and some boards as he gets them, but these are air dired. I thought about using Cunningham but his 1 1/4" and 2 1/4" thicknesses he machines to will be wastefull to me and as most of his wood comes from hedgerows/fields it may not resaw well. I use McGregors in belfast, buying imported wood at the size closest to what I require. Quality can be a bit hit and miss but the price reflects this. I have also used Brooks in belfast but the quality is not much better, is a tad more expensive, but the guy lets you choose your own boards. Have you had any problems with the wood from Cunninghams?

Philip

 

[Alf]

Welcome to the forum, Gareth. Lovely work, and great assistant.

Cheers, Alf

 

[Chris Knight]

Gareth,

A cunning little jig - good solution.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Philip

Have you had any problems with the wood from Cunninghams?

Not at all, as you can see from the blanket chest the panels are bandsawed & book matched. They are about 14mm thick. The wood can have shakes and damage but Clarke is very generous in measuring for costing and takes all of that into account.

If you wanted to resaw long lengths it might be more difficult. The longest I have done is about 1m. I get to choose the boards so you are not handed any old rubbish.

The wood has remained stable in use.

Gareth

 

[Noel]

Cheers for that Neil. I'll keep them in mind next time I'm down.

Noel

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Gareth and welcome
Nothing worth reporting from here in Dublin Nice photos by the way
Cheers Steve