SL Hardwoods

[Jhalfa]

I was just browsing through SL Hardwoods' site and saw that they offer mixed pallets of hardwood (at lease 10 cubic ft) for around £140 plus VAT etc.

http://www.slhardwoods.co.uk/results_fulldetails.asp?prodID=7869

Has anyone ordered one of these? Are they good value? Is there a better place to get such a selection?

Regards

Jonathan

 

[Pete W]

I bought a sack of offcuts from SLH when I first get into woodworking with the intention of making boxes. So it's not directly comparable since my lot was all shorts (nothing longer than about 12", or wider than about 6-8"). But it was a good deal in terms of value for money.

The palettes seem like reasonable value; with delivery and VAT to me it would work out about £20 a cubic foot, which is only 'okay' - not great if you get predominantly UK hardwoods like sycamore and ash; not bad if you get mostly exotics, walnut and the like.

Which leads to the second problem: not knowing what you've got. In my bag I spotted a few bits of oak, and a couple that I'm pretty sure are cherry but otherwise it's all a mystery. Might not matter to you, or you might be better at identifying woods than I am.

Do you feel lucky?

 

[Johnboy]

I bought one of these pallets when I started and it was OK. None of the timber is labelled so as Pete said although I recognized some of them others were (and still are) a mystery. I made a load of boxes and a couple of small tables and still have some bits left now. I had never worked with hardwoods before and found it a good way to try different woods even if I didn't always know what they were.

John

 

[Alf]

Pretty much like John. Got rather a lot of 1" square stuff that I'm still slowly working through, and it can be a bit frustrating to get a board they've obviously chopped in half to fit the pallet size , but not the worst way to try out hardwoods by any means. Mind you, 10 cb ft is a fair old pile; I got it when you could 5 or 7 and that was storage nightmare enough! :lol: From memory I got a lot of poplar, some oak, beech, tiny bit of walnut, quite a bit of that cheap African stuff they call mahogany that isn't really, and all those blasted sticks. Although having said that, one was purpleheart, which was put to good use.

Cheers, Alf

 

[Pete W]

one was purpleheart, which was put to good use.

Nice score. When I wrote my original reply, purpleheart was one of my examples of what you might get if you were lucky. Then I checked the SLH webiste and found they don't stock it.

Incidentally, when I was checking their turning blanks section I found that they do stock boxwood, ebony and lignum vitae, which might come in handy for them that make tools and handles and require such species in small quantities

 

[Alf]

Incidentally, when I was checking their turning blanks section I found that they do stock boxwood, ebony and lignum vitae, which might come in handy for them that make tools and handles and require such species in small quantities

Oh aye? Now do I know anyone like that...? :-k

Cheers, Alf :wink:

 

[jasonB]

The pallets are likely to have woods that they don't stock as they are basically large offcuts from their joinery works - JSM Joinery, thats how they started off just selling offcuts and then found there was a market for small amounts of timber from DIY/amature woodworkers who didn't want to deal with large timber importers.

Jason