Too much wood!

[wobblycogs]

I'm glad I could provide a laugh - after the initial shock I had a good laugh about it too. I've now got the wood all piled up neatly in the hall and living room and it doesn't look half as bad a problem (to me at least). I might try putting some of it in the cellar, I didn't really want to as it's not as dry as the house but I think needs must. Will wait for my back to recover a bit first though I think :lol:

 

[9fingers]

I'm glad I could provide a laugh - after the initial shock I had a good laugh about it too. I've now got the wood all piled up neatly in the hall and living room and it doesn't look half as bad a problem (to me at least). I might try putting some of it in the cellar, I didn't really want to as it's not as dry as the house but I think needs must. Will wait for my back to recover a bit first though I think :lol:

What did you think of the quality of their oak?

Bob

 

[wobblycogs]

Generally the wood is pretty good but there is a lot of variation between the best boards, which are excellent, and the worst boards which are only fair.

If I'm going to do a short review I should first say that my order was for 1m3 ungraded waney edged boards 2.5m to 3m long and 27mm thick with Timports selecting the boards. Including VAT and shipping I paid £27.33 a cubic foot. Delivery was by courier and could have been arranged for the day after ordering but Oliver was happy to put that back a couple of days for me.

A total of 42 boards were delivered: 38 @ 3m, 4 @ 2.5m. Board thickness is good, I've only found 2 that are under 27mm and half a dozen or so that are over 30mm.

Board quality is quite mixed as you would expect but generally the wood is straight grained with few defects. There are a couple of boards that I've already earmarked for something special because they are particularly wide at 500mm or more and have a nice grain pattern. Likewise there are a couple of boards that I'll probably only be able to get 150mm of useful width out of (there is one board that is fantastic apart from a dirty great knot hole right in the middle - oh well). The wood seems to have been dried and cared for well as there is very little in the way of end splits and the boards are pretty flat. Interestingly, I'd say about 10 of the boards come from a single tree so colour matching should be good on those.

If I had a single gripe it would be that 3 or 4 of the boards have a section with iron staining on them. In fact one of the boards actually appears to have an ancient nail embedded in it which the guy at the mill has circled. I find this a bit irritating because there is nothing I can do but cut those sections out - at least with knots I can choose to give the piece some character.

Over all I'm a happy customer I think I got some good wood for the price I paid and I can't wait to get making things...

 

[9fingers]

Thanks For the review.

I bought 3 wide boards about 2.7m long a around 400mm wide and like yours 27-30+mm thick.
They selected these at my request for QS so these came out of the middle of the tree and I was happy with the figuring.
They cost me £100 collected - cash - An invoice is meant to be on its way in the post - so that will be inc Vat. I reckon I got 3 cu ft for my £100 and QS figured compared to other sources that wanted up to £70/cube plus VAT.
So quite good value and no complaints on that score.

On the downside there were iron stains in a few places but these have responded well to oxalic acid treatment as I have posted elsewhere on this forum and TWH

There was no evidence of the ends of the boards having been sealed and there are quite a few splits but only a few inches showing (so far)
I needed to re-saw a couple of pieces to make drawer sides/backs but once cut these sprung badly and even planed down to 10mm are unusable. This could be bad luck or evidence of being kilned too quickly.

Although the boards were wide, they had a bit of wind and for my 700 x 1200 table top I ended up ripping, thicknessing and joining 6 boards but this enabled me to pick the best figuring and I have a nice flat (so far) 22mm thick top

Overall, I would say it is medium quality wood at a pretty good price and I can't grumble at that.

To put the price into perspective, on the same day I purchased 3 cube of 2" AWO that cost over £162. I have not processed any of this yet but it does look top quality.

Bob

 

[wobblycogs]

Thanks of the tip about oxalic acid I didn't know about that. I'm going to need to re-saw a few boards for door panels etc so It'll be interesting to see how that goes. I don't currently have a bandsaw though so that will have to wait.

 

[9fingers]

You might be OK with slightly warped panels for your doors as there will be a much thicker frame all round to hold it flat.

I am a recent convert to oxalic acid treatment see https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/oxal ... 43878.html

Bob

 

[wobblycogs]

Thanks for all the help with my little (or should that be big) wood problem and especially to BSM for offering me some iroko offcuts. Out of the blue though I've just had a call from Oliver at Timports who has very kindly offered to send a bunch of stickers along with my firewood order next week - now that's what I call service.

Anyway, I couldn't concentrate on work so I decided to try out my new DIY track saw and whipped this bit of board out. The lines running the length of the board are from my planner which currently has really blunt and chipped blades.

Bob, I've had a read of your other thread about oxalic acid treatment. I'd be very careful dissolving oxalic acid in boiling water and certainly do it outside. I once burnt inside of my nose quite badly when I got a whiff of hot hydrochloric acid and trust me you don't want that . As a general rule with chemistry neither temperature nor concentration will affect the outcome* but they will affect now long it takes to complete the reaction. e.g. if you want it to go faster make it hotter or add more reagent or both.

* it's a lot more complex than this but this a good enough approximation for this situation.

 

[JonnyD]

You can never have too much wood For stickers i generally rip up 18mm birch ply or mdf offcuts into 30mm strips and use them.

cheers

jon

 

[aesmith]

Any reason not to use Sterling board strips as stickers?

 

[9fingers]

I have read somewhere that certain woods should not be mixed as some staining can occur. I would assume that using similar woods should not cause a problem.

However something as 'inert' as sterling board with a high proportion of glue & resins in it would not cause a problem.

I've used 18mm shuttering ply as stickers with oak and walnut and not seem a problem.

Might be worth experimenting? sort of 'stick it and see'
:lol:

OK hat, coat etc byeee

Bob