WHAT A FIND

[Echo-Star]

Hi all

happy new year to all ukw members

newbie here and 1st post other than putting my workshop dimensions in another topic a few wk back

i've been working on my "new build workshop" for last 4 month, and in the process of cleaning up these 2# beams that I aquired from a job lot of (railway sleepers} that i used to terrace my garden a while back. Knowing these were of different quality than the others by length and weight I set them aside, to be used as roof bearers in my future WS, IE lintle for sliding door and ridge bearer for rafters (sizes 300mmx180mmx5700mm) these beams came from a 100+yr old linoleum factory that had been demolished. anyway i've been working cleaning them up for around a month now, firstly by removing all gunge before planing, burnt out an old B&d powerplaner my father had on 1st face, i had 2nd ryobi that was never going to stand up to the task, so bought myself some tools to get this beam refurb done.Both makita pp £176 and sander £112 and a set of maple chisels £60 to carve out any rot. I've got these monsters all but finnished Yesterday and they are ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. Went surfing lastnight to find out the species, and knowing the charactoristics and every nook and cranny of these beams prsonnaly, then it should'nt be to hard to establish. well it turns out these babies are (Afzelia also known as Doussie) and on the endangered species RED list, along with many others.

now cut down to size 5280mm i have 4x off cut, looking on net i cant find any timber merchant in the uk that has any stock or price for this timber, the only thing i could find was 4x pen blanks on ebay on offer for 40 quid.

any thoughts

cheers lads

 

[dynax]

based on the size of pen blanks, 1cuft works out to around £3000.00, if it is that rare, and as long as what you have is of age to be exempt, i would be tempted to slice and dice it to various sizes and sell half and keep half for personal use,

 

[Steliz]

Hi and welcome to the forum,

It sounds like you've got a great deal there. I've no idea about the value but would you mind posting a picture of it?

 

[Echo-Star]

thanks for replies lads

here are photos i took before taking them under cover for final finishing as they were rather rough with power planing at this stage, I've since went over with the block plane then sanded with 440 and 40 grit. (anther 5 days)

after researching Afzelia extensively, I've read the timber can be difficult/unsuitable for taking on anykind of laquer or varnish, as I've been toiling with coating them in epoxy resin.

photos are end shots for comparable reference before i cut to size.

cheers

 

[rafezetter]

Is any of it quilted (xylay)? I can't really tell from the pictures.

Quilted afzelia looks just incredible.

 

[Echo-Star]

HI Raf

appologies for late reply, been rather busy getting the beams up and roof on, or trying to.

No it is not Xylay, my research tells me that its the species dipindensis, i took photo's with beams inplace and a close up of the grain, which i'll post shortly in better format from what i already posted.

 

[Echo-Star]

Hi folks

Here's an update on the new build, I managed to get the beams up with the help of my son, a couple'o scaffold tubes and jacks, easy enough though once upto wall height and made safe, I then had to reposition a jack to the centre off the beam and rotate 180 for final position on both beams, the outside beam was always going to lie flat to give me the 2.3m to the eaves, the inner will stand side end on to give me the 200mm rise for the pitch.

close up off beam grain

Now to get on with building the roof, and like the rest of this build it was no easy task, with 2x double mitre compound cuts and a mitred checks to sit as a saddle over the front beam and wall plate round the building (peice meal as everyone differs) and as you only get one crack at each rafter and then drop it into position their is little to no room for error.

Some of the hardware I took from the beams during refurb.

Got all rafters fitted and fascia completed today, some tweeking to do but all in all im quite happy with it.

If the weathers ok the morro, then I'll start putting the clothes on it, then we'll see if the rafters are sitting as well as I think they are

Rob

Appologies for boobing the attachments Mike, new to this posting on net and just finding my way, i've tried to edit and hope this is ok

 

[MikeG.]

Those all seem to be links to BT for some reason. There are no photos.