The humble Tasmanian Oak

[matthew]

Here's my back wood. I found this lovely long 300 x 20 plank of quartersawn Tassie Oak at Mitre Ten. I went back three weekends in a row before I bought it but I'm glad I did.



The boys at Gerard Gilet's shop resawed and thicknessed it for me. Each board is now 300 x 8 x 1200.

I reckon its going to look nice.

[Bob Connor]

Nothing humble about Tassie Oak Matt.

I've seen it mentioned in a couple of forums as being totally unsuitable for instrument building due to instability and cracking. Which is a load of bollox.

We've got a guitar set that we're very keen to build with.

How do think Tas Oak/Vic Ash would be received by the buying public here in Australia?

I reckon there would be some consumer resistance to an instrument that's built out of 'dirty old gum tree'

Bob

[Sam Price]

Tasmania seems to be blessed wtih great trees!!

[matthew]

We could give it a new name I suppose.

"Tasmanian satin ash" sounds better or

"streaky maple" ... no not as good.

"white walnut" ???

[kiwigeo]

Tasmania seems to be blessed wtih great trees!!

Not for long if Gunns get their way

[Kim]

Tim Spittle has some enormously flamed sets of Tassi Oak available and very cheap to, he done a few test bends and it was just fine, no issue at all, and the stuff rings like an RKO gong too. From memory his only cautionary note to me was to be careful of this woods potential to stain blue when glued with PVA/AR.

I think this is only a problem when you get the wood either side of the joint overly wet with excess glue, then it reacts with the moisture. I know it will be a big call for most of you but if you leave the Peter Allen CD switched off and the Carmen Miranda fruit hat in the draw during glue up, you should be fine

Cheers

Kim

[Paul B]

Gunns have already got their way Martin. So much for the opposition and the great bald hope - Peter Garret.

I saw a board of tassy oak at bunnies (that's like home despot for you yanks) for like three weekends in a row, about 3/4" x 3" x 15', it was perfectly 1/4 sawn, perfectly. You could only see the end of the board but it really stood out from the pack, I checked it out and it was perfectly 1/4 sawn for most of it's length. Been kicking myself ever since for not buying it, would have been perfect for guitar necks.

Some dweeb DIYer probably turned it into tomato stakes.

BTW, the tallest tree in the world, until a few years ago was a Victorian Mountain Ash, one of the three or so species that are sold as tassy oak. Then the bush fire brigade accidentally burnt it down when a back burning excersize got away from them - oops.

[matthew]

Been kicking myself ever since for not buying it, would have been perfect for guitar necks.

Yeah I;ve had that. You can get some nice wood a bunnies and Mitre Ten, you just have to check the racks. in any cut there is usually one that is close to quarter sawn.

Mitre ten in canterbury still has some 300 x 40 x 5000 planks of WRC. I bought the best one, the others are not so quartered.

The blue staining of woods such as tas oak is common, often is iron tannate or iron acetate, and I guess yes PVA (which IMO has no place in instrument making) may cause similar. With my first test rib bend on an offcut, I used a rusted bending sheet and the whole rib went BLACK!

Weak oxalic acid will remove most of those stains nicely though.