Travis & Perkins timber

[Arthur2]

Hi all. I've been searching T & P's site and see they have 38mm x 300mm southern yellow pine...also 25mm x 250mm. Is this SYP the right stuff for the string and treads?

Thanks.

Arthur

[Weatherlawyer]

I am surprised that you can get yellow pine these days if it is.

Southern where?

White pine is hard and durable but does not clean up well or polish it won't take stain or any kind of a fine finish.

Red pine is more likely to be the stuff used in joinery -or was until vast tracts of spruce needed to be felled due to poor forestry management. It can be finished to a fine plish and takes any stain or varnish well. It is also easy to impregnate without pressure treating.

Yellow pine, if clear of knots is considered one of the finest furniture materials in the world. But it is fairly soft. All the 17th and 18th century veneered mahogany furniture is laid on it.

[Brian G]

Arthur,

If the old pocket can afford the cost, the best stuff to use is Parana pine - it's classed as a sem-hardwood with a fantastic grain - and stairs were nearly always made of it.

As a matter of interest, I have a small desk tidy and printer stand made of Parana sitting on my desk as I type - to an old chippie, that's bliss. :-)

Brian G

[Tim Southerwood]

Weatherlawyer coughed up some electrons that declared:

I got some last year from the timber merchant in Tonbridge. It wasn't cheap, and I didn't explicitly ask for it. I went in with a cutting list and a request for "something dimensionally stable that won't turn into a banana in 5 minutes". Yellow pine was what I got.

True, it was pretty stable. A fractional curl but almost neglible for 300mm wide planks. It's being shelving in my lab right now. I expect I was boned on the price (I don't have a feeling for wood prices so I let myself get shafted, I expect) but I'm pleased with the product, function being important here.

It is oiled, for no other reason that I wanted a quick finish and I'm not a big fan of painted finishes. The result is more "rustic" than "fine furniture" but it gives a nice ambience to where I spend a lot of time sitting, so I like it.

Cheers

Tim

[Arthur2]

Taken on board..to coin a phrase. Took another look at t and p and see they have staircase packages. They have whitewood or parana pine. I have in mind a bare finished starcase with painted risers. Is this a bad idea with whitewood? A feasible idea with the parana?

Arthur

[dom]

I simply couldn't get a wide enough board for a 280mm going (plus a bit for the nosing), so used good quality red pine boards 175mm wide - biscuit jointed and glued up to the required width.

[Stuart Noble]

That sounds like Quebec Yellow, which looks like cheese and carves as easily. OTOH Southern Yellow is tough with a flowery grain figure, and Parana has a more bland appearance. They're about the only hard wearing softwoods that come in a 300mm width

[boombangabang]

Yes thats right.

I went throu the same process last year, just making a 3 tread stairs to an outside door.

Went to Jewson Ltd and I nearly fell off my perch when I was told the price. Asked for offcuts, but they were so split and twisted, it made think what happens to the real mckoy.

So I forgot that idea and got some 'pine' at 175 wide, that had been tanalised, and glued and screwed them together from the back.