Real Tree wood

It is perfectly possible to get a wide range of good quality woods in the UK, but you have to shop arround, find a specalist, and then get to know them. Just going to your local timer yard is not enough these days. I get my good stuff from a place over 100 miles from home ...

Rick

I'm glad someone said that. One of our daughters is a cabinet maker, producing beautifully made (and expensive) custom designed and made furniture. She can find excellent British hardwoods of all kinds and wouldn't dream of using anything grown abroad which can be grown here.

Mary

If you do have a good supplier, Rick, would you mind saying who it is. These are hard to find....

thanks

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

I have used "British Hardwoods" - no problems there. They stock big stuff, and cut your sizes to order. You sending them your cutting list, they work out a price, its not like buying std size bits from B&Q, each bit you get is differen size. I have never had too little delivered.

Its a small company, so expect service from guy who know what they are talking about not speed - order a couple of weeks before you want the wood. The place is a bitch to get to by car, unless you live in the area, so take the delivery option.

Rick

OK thanks, Rick

Is this

Sounds like Mary's neck of t'woods.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

Thats the place.

Rick

In message , Michael Mcneil writes

Don't forget Switzerland

Impressive. Anyone had any experience of their worktops? I was planning to do my own from solid, and am a bit prejudiced against "strip" ones, but the idea of someone else doing the basic lengths and sink cutout and only leaving me with a couple of simple biscuit joins appeals.

All the best things are round here ...

:-)

Mary

British Oak is great, and amazing value if you buy the tree. I know of several Yorkshire & East Ridings places that deal that way, but not much use if you are only considering a bit to put in the boot of your car Michael. As others have indicated it is a specialised market, not best served by the timber merchants, can't see why mainland Europe would be any different.

You lost me there I am afraid.

Switzerland is not noted for its fecund broadwoodlands and it's low prices.

These losers obviously have no idea what they are missing:

"It is perfectly possible to get a wide range of good quality woods in the UK, but you have to shop arround.."

Pillock!

"One of our daughters is a cabinet maker, producing beautifully made (and expensive) custom designed and made furniture. She can find excellent British hardwoods of all kinds and wouldn't dream of using anything grown abroad which can be grown here.

Yes dear. (Can anyone spot the obvious?)

"If you do have a good supplier, Rick, would you mind saying who it is. These are hard to find...."

Oh why's that then?

"I have used "British Hardwoods" ... its not like buying std size bits from B&Q, Each bit you get is different size. ... The place is a bitch to get to by car, unless you live in the area, so take the delivery option."

Talk about about talk. The circle continues with the head up the orifice club until we get the reason:

"All the best things are round here ..."

And the insistance continues with abjact unabatement:

"As others have indicated it is a specialised market, not best served by the timber merchants, can't see why mainland Europe would be any different."

Someone tell him why he can't see. I think I have been acutely obtuse enough.

In message , Michael Mcneil writes

So you might think...

I have a friend who is a carpenter near Neuchatel who owns a primarily hardwood forest (or rather not conifer or whatever you would call it)

The Swiss are also not known as drinkers and I'm hardly what would be called a "social drinker" but Swiss have drunk me under the table, carried me home and gone back to the bar on more than a few occasions

Stereotypes eh ?

Well, enlighten us...

Forget sheds & builder's merchants, fine for PT joists, wouldn't trust them for anything else.

But specialists? Doesn't seem to be a problem getting hold of waney edge, s4s takes longer & vastly more expensive, but are you saying that this is generally of sub-optimal quality?

If so, this site might offer some insights into what's happening:

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

Are you speaking to me?

One would have thought that once he gets his head out of the wrong trousers of time, our aquaintance with friends in high places might care to post the required gen.

You have every right to disagree with me and I have every right to point out to all and sundry the errors of their ways.

Since the move to plastic wine bottle tops and etc, the quircus has been devalued in Spain and Portugal. The move to reclaim land once devoted to timber now that the wars in France have been widely forgotten and the opening up of the Eastern Block along with Russian trade deficits has led to the flood of cheap high quality timber in Europe. I just wondered if anyone on here knew any more about it than I do. Obvious no one else has a foggy except for someone who seems inclined to but drop his credentials.

I have seen the clamps they use on these worktops, they use huge numbers, you would never buy as many clamps as these guys use, it would cost too much.

Rick

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Michael Mcneil" saying something like:

And have to share a vehicle with you?

No fkin thanks.

well, yes. most specifically, it was the response to Mary, if there was an obvious point there I'm afraid it completely passed me by.

I'm not disagreeing nor agreeing, just curious to know more about your issue with availability of high quality timber here. (I'm interested in this because I'm relatively new to woodworking - only a couple of years making bits of furniture for the house - and as such don't yet have the experience and confidence to recognise and reject marginal timber from the merchants. You sound as if you do know this, so I'd just be interested in your experiences).

Is it that even the specialists don't stock timber of the quality that they should, in which case what's the main problem that you come across. Or is it that once finding suitable places & timber the prices are just sky-high?

ok, fine, begin to understand now. Speaking to a local flooring shop recently the owner generally spends a lot of time in Germany in the Black Forest sourcing timberyards for new sources. That sounds like it would be rich hunting ground, I'll try and find out if I'm in there in the next few weeks. I also want to find out where the joiners down the road source their timber - I've liberated a lot of their offcuts (with happily granted permission) in the past and the european oak that's now becoming coffee table legs seems to be rather good stuff.

Ah well, it's a specialist field... Mssrs Dingley and McCann normally have a lot to say on the subject (often resulting in an argument) but haven't seen much of them recently.

rec.woodworking ? (if you can set up a decent spam/troll filter, that group's all but unusable without) Problem is of course it's mostly 'merkin, and populated by "who's got the biggest/oldest/best setup willy aka tablesaw" threads, but there are some UKers there.

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

Good Woodworking magazine have just put a list up (web-accessible ones only)