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Well folks,

I was out in the shed framing up some new benches for my lute room. To save a buck, I am using recycled West Australian Jarrah. This stuff has been pulled out of a timber framed house, denailed, face and edge planed, ripped to dimension and installed.

Jarrah is a premium Aussie hardwood an makes excellent framing timber, hence the abundance found in local salvage yards. Anyhow, I have worked with this stuff for years but the diversity of colour never ceases to amaze me.

The first image shows 2 pieces of Jarrah, there is no sap wood here, it's just how this stuff comes. The image has not been touched-up, if anything, the darker stuff with the curl looks much lighter in colour due to the flash.



The salmon pink stuff is lighter by weight as well as colour. This weight colour relationship is so predictable that years back, when I was making staircases for a living, if a client ordered a Jarrah staircase, I could pretty much colour match the hole job when selecting rough sawn boards from the supplier just by using variations in weight as an indicator.

We used to fool around sometimes and would install darker treads and risers down the bottom and take it toward the pink hues at the top, or dark treads and handrail with light spindles used for the balusters. Sometimes you get good curl, sometimes a black fleck similar to that found in tiger myrtle but less intense quite often both in the same board.

Here is a curly board with a bit of fleck and a rough gloss finish.



Here is another with a broad kind of quilt.




One of the more bazaar figures found in WA Jarrah is a curl that looks somewhat DNA threads as can be seen in the image below, this is a small stick but I have seen this figure in large boards.



The above may be a small stick but this wood is generally harvested from substantial trees. WA Jarrah was know as Swan River Mahogany in those early years when this state was first settled, it has been the backbone of our timber trade ever since. That's a large work glove I pushed into a heart shake to give some idea of size.



This is one of 4 clean logs cut from the same trunk.





Strong and beautiful this diverse wood works well and takes a nice finish. And yes, you can even make guitars from it...loud guitars

Thanks for looking, just thought I would share with my OLF buddies.

Cheers

Kim

    That stuff looks cool! It's amazing there is so much of a variation in grain and color from tree to tree! I not an expert by any stretch, but I've never heard of jarrah. Thanks Kim!

Billy Dean Thomas

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Fascinating wood: It amazes me that geometric design can exist in nature!!



I suppose you can make a natural version of this;



Being serious tho, my gut instinct tells me that that wood is pretty lethal on the ole lungs...Sam Price38914.1354166667

I'm packing tomorrow mornin' and i'm flyin' to Aussie Land! WOW! Thanks Kim, great looking wood evrywhere in yo country Man!

I may be wrong here , but I think our mate Tim Spittle ( Australian Tonewoods ) has Jarrah sets . His catalogue says around $120 per.

If any of you havent dealt with Tim yet , I'd encourage you to do so . What a top bloke ! His service is the finest you could imagine and then some !

Regards , Kiwi

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CRAIG LAWRENCE of AUSTRALIA
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That is really cool how that pattern can come out of nature. This seems to be a really nice wood and I have been looking hard at some of the options offered in woods both B&S and Tops from Australia and our sponsors. Great thread.

Mike
White Oak, Texas

[QUOTE=Sam Price] Fascinating wood: It amazes me that geometric design can exist in nature!!




[/QUOTE]

I believe this figure type is referred to as "block mottle". Common in makore as well.

It's amzaing to me how distressed jarah burl is. Full of cracks and checks and voids, but makes some nice high end turned vessels.

I have built two guitars in the past from Jarrah, one with a King Billy top using darker colored Jarrah and one with a Englemann top that was closer to the lighter color. Really nice wood and much more stable than I thought it might be.

There are so many amazing Aussie woods that may have the name pine, walnut, or mahogany in the popular name but they are completely unique and very cool woods.

I have used purple gidgee for a fingerboard and it was bulletproof. I have done things with various woods like woody pear, myall, beefwood, red and blue gum and others...the only downside is that alot of the woods, especially the desert woods are very heavy so they are better for things like bindings and inlay but all unique.

What can you tell me about the saw setup in the background?...the beam is clear to see but I can not see the saw mechanism as to whether it is a circular saw type, a bandsaw or a chainsaw blade.

Thanks for the tutorial, Kim. Very interesting! What does the future look like for this wood? From your description it sounds like Jarrah is in high demand for a variety of uses. Will there be any left in 20 years?

Well guy,

Glad you found some interest


[QUOTE=Sam Price]
Being serious tho, my gut instinct tells me that that wood is pretty lethal on the ole lungs...[/QUOTE]

Sam, Jarrah dust like all wood dust is best avoided, but it is not too bad on the noxious scale. It's more of a mild irritant to the respiratory system, nothing like some of the exotics. However, you do get the odd bit of darker stuff that smells like you have run over a dry dog turd with the lawn mower.


[QUOTE=Serge Poirier] I'm packing tomorrow mornin' and i'm flyin' to Aussie Land! WOW! Thanks Kim, great looking wood evrywhere in yo country Man! [/QUOTE]

Hey Serge, your welcome anytime, just bring some of that Canadian Lutzii with ya bud.    


[QUOTE=KiwiCraig] I may be wrong here , but I think our mate Tim Spittle ( Australian Tonewoods ) has Jarrah sets . His catalogue says around $120 per.

If any of you havent dealt with Tim yet , I'd encourage you to do so . What a top bloke ! His service is the finest you could imagine and then some !

Regards , Kiwi[/QUOTE]

Yeah Craig, I will second the vote for Tim Spittle, he has some really nice wood and is a top bloke to deal with no question.

[QUOTE=Shawn]
What can you tell me about the saw setup in the background?...the beam is clear to see but I can not see the saw mechanism as to whether it is a circular saw type, a bandsaw or a chainsaw blade.[/QUOTE]

Sound like you have been digging right in to our local timbers there Shane, well done You are spot on regarding the density of the dessert woods, some of the species like gidgee, western mayal, minnerichi, beefwood, mulga and the like, are soooo hard they polish like glass and are, as you say, bullet proof. Great fingerboard stuff, me thinks me lucky .

As for the saw, tis a loooong bar chain mill. Just for interest, because of the shake in the centre, the entire log from which the one of four pictured came from (and believe me, the log looks about 1/4 as long as it really is in the image) had been rejected by our forestry management people and was destine for the firewood market.

Thankfully, the miller had out bid the wood carters and resawed the lot for the furniture trade. Up until just a few years back, most of the figured stuff was burnt, the curl was not desirable in structural grade timber and the furniture trade seen it as a fault .


[QUOTE=CarltonM] What does the future look like for this wood? From your description it sounds like Jarrah is in high demand for a variety of uses. Will there be any left in 20 years?[/QUOTE]

Well Carlton,

This is the usual sad story.After near 200years of cutting these logs like there is no tomorrow, I think there will not be for this species in a commercial sense

You see unfortunately for Jarrah it really is good for lots and lots of things. It is stable and weather resistant so, in the early days, it was cut in huge quantities and shipped off to England. Once there, it was used for many things such as a substraight beneath cobbled roads and for rail sleepers.

In fact, it makes such hard wearing rail sleeper, it has been used to build thousands and thousands of miles of railroad all over the planet. Also, until quite recently, it was THE wood used to frame and floor every house built in Western Australia. And this is in the state that chippies (carpenters) call "the home of the cut roof".

Over the years, Jarrah has also been used extensively in the joinery and furniture trades and as mentioned it has also been used for firewood burning long and hot in wood stoves and fire places for many many years.

All of this pressure has led to a situation where there is now only a very limited, "controlled harvest" of old growth trees. And, like so many premium hardwoods, Jarrah is not generally replanted as it takes so long to grow and faster growing, "commercially viable" species are planted instead....aaarrrggghhhh..dear me....oh deary, deary me...must resist...yyeeeeeeeggggoooooaaaaaarrrggghhhh.....NO POLITICS KIM....NO POLITICS KIM..........NO POLITICS KIM..........NO POLITICS KIM......whooooo..boy, that was close.

Anyhow Carlton, to answer your question, naaah not many left mate, really just a few tufts here and there hiding in the national parks Who knows what excuses they will come up with in the next 20 years to clean them out. Good thing there is plenty of salvage wood to be had

Cheers all

Kim

[QUOTE=larkim]
200years of cutting these logs like there is no tomorrow...

Anyhow Carlton, to answer your question, naaah not many left mate[/QUOTE]
I was afraid that that was the case. I guess it's the same story everywhere. People just can't think beyond their lifetimes. Now, if they'd planted new Jarrah when they'd started logging it 200 years ago....

Yep, and the same goes for BRW, I believe that a lot of the old growth wood available today is being salvaged from old barns and such in Brazil. Imagine that, a BRW barn.

I guess people just use the best material at hand. I suppose if they thought that their project was not worthy of the best, there would not be the incentive to build it in the first place, look at us with our guitars.

Unfortunately alternatives to anything are rarely considered until the perceived best is all gone and only then are they begrudgingly accepted into the market. Usually, a short while later, the alliterative is embraced as the new BEST standard and off the cycle goes again....we truly are a strange animal me thinks.

Cheers

Kim

Well I thought I would put in my ten cents worth regarding Jarrah



If any forum member wants to experiment with a Jarrah set I am prepared to offer sets at a discounted rate ($70 USD plus $25 Shipping). These would be reasonably straight grained sets with good contrasting reddy brown bands of colour. For your reference/database I have included some images below of Jarrah sets at the upper end of the grading range. They have excellent fiddleback and colour.

regards

Tim

Australian Tonewoods



Black Swan38916.85

So exactly where have you been hiding that awsome set Mr Spittle    Looks great Tim, what price do you have on that stunner??

Cheers

Kim

That is a very good question Kim!

The dreadnought set is one of five and will be available in September. They are priced at $120 USD per set and forward orders are welcome.

regards

Tim

Wow, that's some nice looking zoot for 120 clams!

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars