Wood suppliers

[19ninety]

Hi,
This is a bit of a rant, and also a question
I'm looking to purchase some boards to make some basic furniture. We have an acacia bookcase and I recently made a coffee table from mora. I have some mora left over and to compliment the other two I'd like to make a TV stand with Mora sides and whatever timer shelves and another set of shelves of the same style. I'm looking for some timber that will be strong enough to be a 100cm long for the main TV stand shelf and be able to carry the weight of a heavy TV. I'd like the timber I choose to be interesting in appearance, the acacia bookcase is a mix of sap and heartwood as is the Mora, and once finished makes them very nice to look at.
Why am I writing all this? Well I'm not sure if people think I'm a time waster, perhaps I come across that way as I'm not familiar with the timber trade? I'm not a carpenter, or a cabinet maker ... just someone trying to do something they enjoy to make something different to the boring Ikea/Argos/etc. laminated beech coloured crud. I've emailed a couple of different companies and seem to get quite blunt and unhelpful answers despite giving plenty of info and being very polite emailing them for a second or third time, which is a little upsetting to say the least, hasn’t been the best beginning to my new interest really.

So rant over and long story short, where does everyone else buy small amounts (five or less boards) of exotic timber? I'd like acacia, but have been told it has got so many sub species that it will be hard to find one with a similar grain/pattern. I really like the look of wamara ... but seems no one has any, which is fair enough.
Are there any other readily available timbers which have cuts that include both sapwood and heart wood?
Also I love the look of bubinga - now I wouldn’t use it for shelves, but I plan on making some speakers next year and it would be beautiful to use as the front baffle.

Oh also, one thing I keep wondering, if you know the dimensions of a piece of wood, and know the price per ft3 or m3, how can you workout the cost per board?

Thanks in advance!

G

 

[marcros]

Hi,
This is a bit of a rant, and also a question
I'm looking to purchase some boards to make some basic furniture. We have an acacia bookcase and I recently made a coffee table from mora. I have some mora left over and to compliment the other two I'd like to make a TV stand with Mora sides and whatever timer shelves and another set of shelves of the same style. I'm looking for some timber that will be strong enough to be a 100cm long for the main TV stand shelf and be able to carry the weight of a heavy TV. I'd like the timber I choose to be interesting in appearance, the acacia bookcase is a mix of sap and heartwood as is the Mora, and once finished makes them very nice to look at.
Why am I writing all this? Well I'm not sure if people think I'm a time waster, perhaps I come across that way as I'm not familiar with the timber trade? I'm not a carpenter, or a cabinet maker ... just someone trying to do something they enjoy to make something different to the boring Ikea/Argos/etc. laminated beech coloured crud. I've emailed a couple of different companies and seem to get quite blunt and unhelpful answers despite giving plenty of info and being very polite emailing them for a second or third time, which is a little upsetting to say the least, hasn’t been the best beginning to my new interest really.

So rant over and long story short, where does everyone else buy small amounts (five or less boards) of exotic timber? I'd like acacia, but have been told it has got so many sub species that it will be hard to find one with a similar grain/pattern. I really like the look of wamara ... but seems no one has any, which is fair enough.
Are there any other readily available timbers which have cuts that include both sapwood and heart wood?
Also I love the look of bubinga - now I wouldn’t use it for shelves, but I plan on making some speakers next year and it would be beautiful to use as the front baffle.

Oh also, one thing I keep wondering, if you know the dimensions of a piece of wood, and know the price per ft3 or m3, how can you workout the cost per board?

Thanks in advance!

G

I suspect much of your problem is trying to source exotics that the supplier does not have, and would be a problem for them to get hold of. That is no excuse for poor customer service, but is all too common.

As for pricing boards, you need to work out the dimensions of your board into a feet and convert to a decimal. For example, a board of 9x1 at 4 feet long becomes 9/12 (=.75) x 1/12 (=.083) x 4 . Multiplying these together gives the cubic footage of your board (=.25 cubic feet in this case). Take this and multiply it by your cubic footage price.

This is often easier to do in Excel or similar. Just sense check everything and you wont go far wrong...

HTH
Mark

 

[Treet timber supply]

I've also just registered on this forum as a timber supplier and this post was an ideal one for me to reply to!

I have been milling and selling timber for 5 years now and the selling part of it has been frustrating to say the least. And this is how it goes in 80% e-mail type cases. Someone e mails me saying 'have I got any (we'll use beech as an example) beech?'

Me : I reply saying yes plenty. It's mainly in 2" planks, some spaulted, also 6" by 2" boards 8 foot long.

Customer : Can you send some pictures please? And is the spaulting the flame kind or the black line kind?

Me : Here are some pictures but the boards are in stick to keep them straight, quite dry (so you can't see any of the chararcter).

Customer : How much are they?

Me : Depends on quantity bought but prob between £25-00 and £30 a cubic foot depending on how much you buy.

Customer : Ok but where are you, can you send it to me?

Me : Lymington Hampshire. Yes I can send for £12 inc vat for 30kg as long as boards no longer than 1.7m

Customer : Can you plane or sand a board so that I can see the colours/spaulting please?

Me (in the old days as I wouldn't do it now!) : Ok But it will only be the top board and the spaulting changes drastically with all the boards.

I send the pictures and typically as above in 80% of cases I never hear back.

I haven't got time to have e-mails go backwards and forwards, take pictures and then most people don't buy something. And I would assume this is the case with other timber suppliers. Customers who make the trip to my yard always buy timber, always seem happy and my time isn't wasted.

I'm not suggesting you are a time waster by the way but I think you need to adjust the way you want to buy timber.

Personally I think you need to visit timber suppliers in person and see what they have. You can look through their boards and find something you like. It's very difficult and frustrating for both parties to try and carry out transactions through e-mails and phone calls. And to date I have had very limited success doing this. I want customers to come down to me (preferably bringing a hand plane so they can see what the timer like underneath).

Interestingly most people I sell timber to come to the yard and leave with a totally different selection than they had in their mind when they visited....

 

[mtr1]

Hello, This probably isn't what you want to hear, but you need to develop a good relationship with a timber-yard, by that I mean buy from them on a regular basis, and don't bother e-mailing....call and speak to the guys. E-mails are easy to ignore, and a easy to misinterpret if the reply is short and business like. This is just my opinion, and for what its worth I buy from John Boddys. I don't know if they carry the timbers you want, but try to speak to Peter May.

 

[19ninety]

Mark,
Thanks for that, will make it easier to work out costs & budgets and also save me asking the question if stock sizes are listed.

Treet Timber,
I totally understand what your saying, I guess it works both ways etc. Websites are good and bad, its nice to be able to see whats available and what different timbers look like, but there is so much variation that as you say to see it first hand is best. The reasons I had been emailing companies is that I wanted to try and get an idea of the cost/size before I get to a certain point of selection, then find a supplier who has the stock that I could see, to then go and visit them and see and buy the desired timber. Sykes, Boddys, etc, are all a LONG way from me (Near Oxford) and also time, I havent had the spar time to go anywhere far, and as stupid as it sounds work is so busy I dont have the time or concentration to call and get into conversation - yea work is that manic.
I expect by not looking in the right places I have failed to find exotic timber stockists within a reasonable distance to me. Thats until after posting my rant and then having a look round the forums and finding a company called Deep In Wood who are about 15miles from me ... right under my nose all this time! I have emailed them (Yes I know!) for a stock check, size if available and price as again I cant get to them for a couple of weeks due to prior commitments but REALLY want to get my planning a bit further forward.
Reading back on all this yes I can see that the majority of my dissatisfaction is my own fault though, which I realised yesterday which is why I registered here to learn a bit more

mtr1,
I did email John Boddy when I was first trying to work out prices, one of their chaps was kind enough to actually call me back rather than email me back. I think not through a lack of trying more a lack of my own knowledge and experience (exotic timber is along way from ordering 20m of studwork and some mdf from Wickes!) in locating and enquiring about timbers is most of the problem here!


I guess impatience doesnt help either, I have a whole bunch of ideas I want to get moving on but cant right away, its so frustrating :x However I did order "Cabinetmaking: A Foundation Course" for some intertim reading ... which will just be teasing myself more as I'll be itching to try things!!

Appreciate the time you guys have taken to reply though, thankyou.

G

 

[tomatwark]

Hi

Have you tried giving this company a ring?

www.timbmet.com

Tom

 

[19ninety]

Hi Tom,

Thankyou, will have a look!

 

[slimshady]

Very close to Oxford is Deep In Wood , near to Bessels Leigh off the A420. No exotics I'm afraid just lots of native hardwoods. I'm also far too busy with work to play in the workshop but it's easy to pop in/ring them and see what they've got.
Also just remembered the "Find my local" at the top of page.
Alex.