Spalted Birch

centre half

Anyone know where I can get my hands on some spalted birch in Ireland? Actually, where would you recommend to go to in Ireland generally, regarding sawmills that do nice wood?

Thanks in advance

Stanirish

Where about in Ireland are you ?

ttm

Really depends what you want it for? Woodturning I guess?

Spalted Birch would be a trickly one as birch isn't very durable so the difference between spalted and rotten isn't much

Best place I know if its for woodturning is someones log pile

Its a short lived but quite fast growing tree and often planted in gardens so I'd have a ring around of any local tree surgeons you can find and see if they will put you back any intersting timber, if they sell firewood you might be able to get the option of picking over their stock which will include all sorts of intersting stuff all be it in short lenghts.

On the other hand if its long lenghts for joinery thats a different much more expensive matter

centre half

Yes, sorry my bad, I should have maybe explained. I want to make a kitchen table top out of it.

dubtom

There is a coal yard/ saw mill outside kilcock, I think it may be the old kilcock- enfield road. It's just outside kilcock as you go over the bridge. I got some nice stuff there a few years back quite cheaply. Not sure if he'll have what you want but worth a look.

MathsManiac

Check out the sticky at the top: "timber"

kevinbirchall

centre half wrote: »

Anyone know where I can get my hands on some spalted birch in Ireland? Actually, where would you recommend to go to in Ireland generally, regarding sawmills that do nice wood?

Thanks in advance

I train tree surgeons and could put a blog post out for you or email the guys I know to keep an eye out for interesting timber.

ttm

kevinbirchall wrote: »

I train tree surgeons and could put a blog post out for you or email the guys I know to keep an eye out for interesting timber.

Sounds good to me, lots of good timber gets chipped, burnt or dumped in landfill so its always good to see it put to better use.

btw you didn't know John Whitehead did you, omg that would be almost 20 years ago ?

ennisa

I don't think i've ever seen anyone use a piece of spalted birch for a table top i've never seen a piece that big, usually you see it as a decorative panel in a door and such. There was a site on line that i came across ages ago about spalting your own wood. For small pieces they got a plastic bucket, filled it with earth, seeded it with some fungus and then buried the wood in it for a couple of months. The link of course is hiding in obscurity on google but I would say that would be the only way to get a piece that large that you don't have to remortgage the house to pay for.

kadman

Try Lisnavagh Timber Project, I,d imagine they would be able to help

kadman

Alun

Any reason it has to be birch? I'd think spalted beech would be available in larger planks than birch would be (if at all).

oflynnsflooring

Hello.
I think Alun is correct-do you mean spalted beech?

If so I have Irish elm,spalted beech and some Irish oak.We salvage any native timber we can from tree felling,storm damage etc,cut and dry accordingly

They are all in 1 inch rough planed boards,kiln dried and between 6 and 9 feet long.
If you want any of this send me a wish list and I will come back to you

oflynnsflooring@eircom.net

Regards Ray

centre half

It's spalted birch I'm looking for, it's very very hard to get, It's for a present, the Surname is Birch so thought it would be nice but just can't get it anywhere

Alun

OK, good luck then! The problem is though that birch trees just don't grow that big in general, maybe up to about 9-12" diameter max. Once you've milled that I reckon you'll be lucky to get a decent plank bigger than about 6" in width, so to make a decent size table top you'll be doing a lot of gluing. Also in my experience of turning small pieces of spalted silver birch logs, the spalting process can make the timber quite soft and crumbly if the spalting process isn't stopped early enough. This happens with all spalted timber, but birch seems more susceptible to it than, say, beech does, which as I said above would be my timber of choice for a table top if you were looking for the spalted look.

ennisa

oflynnsflooring wrote: »

Hello.
I think Alun is correct-do you mean spalted beech?

If so I have Irish elm,spalted beech and some Irish oak.We salvage any native timber we can from tree felling,storm damage etc,cut and dry accordingly

They are all in 1 inch rough planed boards,kiln dried and between 6 and 9 feet long.
If you want any of this send me a wish list and I will come back to you

oflynnsflooring@eircom.net

Regards Ray

Where are you guys located? I'm sure there is other people on here, myself included, that may be looking for a nice piece of spalted something or other in the future.

Thanks.

RonRocoman

hi,

i'm looking for a birch log about 30cm diameter and about 60cm long. any ideas where i could get this locally.

thanks

Ronan

ttm

Golden pages > Tree Services > Ring around and ask; leave your number.

An amazing amount of useful timber gets chipped or goes for firewood.

RonRocoman

thanks ttm, i'll give that a try.
i thought maybe 30cm diameter size logs might come up fairly infrequently, meaning i'd need to go to a managed forestry source?

ttm

RonRocoman wrote: »

thanks ttm, i'll give that a try.
i thought maybe 30cm diameter size logs might come up fairly infrequently, meaning i'd need to go to a managed forestry source?

Its 25 years since I last worked as a Tree Surgeon so things will have changed but the trees are still the same.

It wouldn't be unusual to have old garden birch trees with 70-90cm diameter that are near then end of their life and starting to die back so need removing before they cause a hazzard. They rot real quick when they get too old or are badly lopped.

Not sure what managed forestry has to do with birch, its a primary coloniser after a fire so don't think its ever planted except as a nurse species for other timber species to grow up through. Although thinning it out or rather removing it competely for firewood from the crop species would be managment.

You could also see if you can find a sawmill and ask them if they have any contacts that haul timber that could throw in a chunk of birch next time they are out in the woods. You don't have to look too far in any forestry block to find birch popping up.

RonRocoman

cheers ttm,
i've contacted a couple of tree surgeons in yellow pages, and so far at least one seems to think he can help me. will certainly look into your other
suggestions if this line doesn't come through. as you say, birch isn't generally forested but there still seems to be plenty about.

thanks again

Ronan