timber

[Fred]

Hi,

I recently asked here about woods for a garden gate and you kindly recommended larch or douglas fir. My local timber merchant only seems to sell pine! I found a couple of other timber merchants via the yellow pages. One never got back to me with prices; the other quoted over two hundred pounds for Douglas fir for a 6'x3' gate. I almost fainted, I think I'll go for the gate made of platinum instead! Surely that's OTT?

I've been sent a catalogue from Build centre which lists both douglas fir and larch but not prices. I hadn't thought of them as a timber merchant before. Has anyone bought from them? Are they any good?

BTW I see that Wickes and B&Q now sell "professional grade redwood". I wonder which company did it first and who is copying? Does this imply that the other wood they sell - they say it's pine, I think it's banana - is not fit for professional use ;)

Has anyone bought any redwood from one of these "sheds" and was it any good? Was the price any dearer than getting it from a merchant? I think merchants are the only option for anything >2.4m long but when I bought skirting and architrave recently, I am sure that Wickes was about the same price as the merchant.

TIA

[Andy Dingley]

That's typical, because they're probably a builders' merchant rather than a timber merchant.

A real timber merchant is like this, which might give you a useful comparison, even if they're not local to you.

ought to be cheap soon (Hah!), as there's a huge quantity being felled in the SW at the moment, to avoid the spread of Sudden Oak Death.

[Nightjar]

Fred wrote: ...

Wolseley UK (Build / Pipe / Plumb / etc Center) are one of my regular suppliers. I've not bought Douglas Fir or Larch from them, but have found their joinery quality timer to be good quality.

Colin Bignell

[stuart noble]

Redwood is the usual pine species you see in every timber merchant's. Problem is, it comes in a variety of grades, depending where it's grown, and the retail punter is not party to that information. Terms like "professional grade" or "joinery quality" mean sod all really. IME the sheds are truly hopeless. Lowest possible grade of whitewood, strangled by plastic packaging in the hope that it will stay straight. By contrast, timber merchant are usually good value.

I need some 3" x 1" for a bit of a picket fence and a gate out front. Builders merchant £1.45 per m, timber merchant £2.19. In this case I'll plump for the cheap stuff but, for anything indoors, it would be a false economy.

[AlanD]

You could just buy ready-made. I've bought 2 pairs of gates from Cannock Gates, good service and product:

[Dave Liquorice]

And expensive when I looked at their prices a while back. I got three gates (field, whicket side and mid sized whicket) for the price of the field gate alone from Cannock. I used a local timber merchant & timber product maker in Hexham. These gates are now nearly 10 years old and are well made, no sign of any drop, or rot (dip treated).

[Fred]

I think they are a builders' timer merchant in that they only sell wood but they sell it to builders rather than cabinet makers!

[Fred]

I hadn't realised that. I naively thought that redwood was another species, redder in colour than pine!

Yes, I had realised that "professional quality" labels were just for marketing purposes.

In the timber brochure I was sent it talks about grade. the options are "unsorted", "fifth", and "sixth". I am guessing that unsorted is what it says and could be good or could be bad all mixed together but what is fifth and sixth (and where are first to fourth)?

Thanks.

[Fred]

them. Shame on you, this is UK DIY ;)

[Fred]

Thanks. Do you need to open an account or can you "cash and carry"? Do they let the public (me) in?

BTW how are you? I downloaded all headers and am still working my way through posts from 2004! There are so many posts: how does everyone manage to keep up to date on this group? Do you sort posts by date so the news ones are at the top? Back to my point: I read a post about a heart valve. Did it all go ok? I hope you are ok now.

[stuart noble]

That has never made sense to me either, and I used to buy softwood by the pack (around 4 cubic metres). A Finnish 5th is better than a Lower Gulf unsorted, and Russian Karasea is the creme de la creme. Welsh redwood is used for pallets. The further north it's grown, the higher the price

[Cod Roe]

explains:

"Timber / Lumber can be graded in to I, II, III, IV, V, VI, if they where in the 21st century 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. However in the jargon of the timber world, instead of saying ?grade five? it?s ?fifths? or written as ?V? etc.

OK.. got that, on to the next jargon.

Grades I, II and III aren?t actually graded, it?s the IV V VI that are given grades. The first three grades are all lumped together and called ?Unsorted? ?U/S?. I should think there's a commercial reason for this to the benefit of timber suppliers."

[Nightjar]

They will sell to anybody, but with an account I automatically get a trade discount and, this month, I got a booklet of discount vouchers with an extra 15%-25% of various products, including timber.

That's what I do, then I cherry pick the ones that either look interesting or where it appears I may be able to help.

Thank you for asking. With all the exercises they gave me to do, I'm probably fitter now than I ever have been. I did have the advantage that it was a preventative replacement, rather than a corrective one. As a result, I was in good health when I went in, which helped my recovery. I also believe that attitude of mind is a major factor in health and I simply had no intention of allowing it to be more than a temporary inconvenience.

The only side effect, which is also related to 'er indoors having a nasty fall at Christmas, is that I have decided to take my pension and spend more time going places.

Colin Bignell

[Fred]

Sorry for my late reply. I'm glad to hear all went/is well. I haven't done anything more about the wood, despite being in their catalogue, larch it seems is a special order, and not stocked in their branches.

I've asked a couple of merchants now but they only seem interested if I'll order pallets of the stuff ;(