Silliest wood purchase in a while.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Knocking together a couple of utilitarian things for the shop, so I grabbed a couple of pine boards from the blue borg when picking up some other stuff we needed for the house. It was Sunday, so my normal lumberyard was closed, and I didn't feel like ripping or resawing, so it was nice to have something pretty much the size I needed. (Some 1/2" thick stuff)

It wasn't until I was crosscutting things to length that I noticed the sticker on the end of the board:

246044

Nothing against New Zealand, but I just kind of found it ridiculous that softwood lumber made it's way over 9000 miles (Wolfram Alpha gives me a 9125 as the crow flies) to an area were it certainly isn't difficult to obtain something similar. I'm sure there's plenty of economy of scale things going on, it just made me chuckle and face-palm.

[Bill Houghton]

See, that's the thing. Close to you, they grow the wood; takes up lots of land, requires a lot of water, things happen (lightning strikes, fungus, zombies) to affect the crop. In New Zealand, they've figured out how to produce the wood in a factory setting; that's why the sticker says "Made in New Zealand," rather than "Product of New Zealand." Much more efficient, the factories. If you ever vacation among the Kiwis, stop by one of the factories and ask for a tour.

[Paul Saffold]

I've bought some of that, too. It's in the bin labeled "Southern Pine" . Yea, I guess it is pretty far south.

[Chris Griggs]

So does that mean it qualifies as an exotic import?

My most recent furniture build is/was built from big blue store pine. I'll need to go down to the shop to see if I can find any of the stickers on the off cuts - wonder if its the same stuff.

[Andrae Covington]

Radiata Pine, originally native to the area around Monterey Bay, California but grown in tree farms all around the world. According to wiki it was introduced to New Zealand in 1859. Unfortunately the small native forests are under attack by a fungal disease, but the overseas tree farms are enormous and so far unaffected. A large NZ timber milling company called Claymark International successfully courted the orange box some years ago to supply radiata pine to the US market. Their tree farms are FSC certified if that makes you feel any better about the transportation carbon footprint.:rolleyes:

[Bill Houghton]

Radiata Pine, originally native to the area around Monterey Bay, California...

And originally and still known, at least round about these parts (Northern California) as Monterey pine.

[Sean Richards]

We also grow Monterey Cypress known locally as Macrocarpa ...

[Sam Babbage]

Radiata is awful, so very, very awful. It's the standard Borg timber in Australia. My very first woodwork project was a dovetailed toolbox (read a shoebox for tools)out of radiata... To this day I still have nightmares about chiseling that stuff. *shudder*

[Tony Zaffuto]

The amazing thing for me is, although I live in DuBois, PA, I can buy wood from Grof Lumber in Quarryville (near Lancaster, PA, some 150 miles away) and have it delivered, including cost of lumber & shipping, cheaper than anything at the local borg. Grof has all the borg stuff, including poplar, white pine, oak and everything through exotics. Takes only a day or two for delivery also.

[David Keller NC]

Well, if it makes you feel any better, take a look at the sticker on an apple the next time you buy one in the store in the US in July. Depending on how good the crop was in the US the year before (and thus how long it lasts), that apple will likely say "New Zealand" or "Chile".

Semi-permanent materials like lumber, steel, aluminum, and most plastics are made and shipped all over the world, and have been for centuries. Mahogany, for example, was widely exported from South America to Britian and her colonies in the 18th and 19th centuries. And mahogany will certainly grow in India, where a great deal of it was consumed in the 19th century. But it was a lot cheaper to grow it in its native range and ship it 12,000 miles to Bombay.

But the food shipments, at least in the US, are kind of ridiculous - it's mostly about consumers wanting an apple or grapes in the spring instead of the fall.

[Jack Curtis]

Yeah, Dave, frankenfoods have caused us to forget about seasons, until the discerning consumer takes a bite, that is.

[Bill Houghton]

We also grow Monterey Cypress known locally as Macrocarpa ...
That looks like it would be a good bonsai material - the shape is certainly right. Would it then be Microcarpa?

[Sean Richards]

That looks like it would be a good bonsai material - the shape is certainly right. Would it then be Microcarpa?

I have a few on my property but they are probably 70 - 80 ft high at least - so not ideal bonsai material :)

[Peter Evans]

Radiata is rubbish, and is extensively used for cheap furniture in Oz. There is an enormous amount tossed out on the footpath for council cleanup collection. This provides an endless supply for jigs, prototypes, saw vises, shave horse, Thomas the Tank Engine railway tracks (my grandkids love playing railways and the commercial tracks are so short - I am currently working on track to go thru their house), workshop shelves, etc. Occasionally people toss out good timber... but not often enough for me!

[Ron Kellison]

I guess I'm spoiled! I live up in Ottawa and at least 2-3 weekends a month I drop in and talk to Bernie. He a gentleman, loves woods and understands the woodworker who can only afford to buy from the "shorts" bin.

http://www.kjpselecthardwoods.com/

I can buy maple, oak, ash, poplar and pine there for significantly less than the Borg(s) charge and I never get hassled if I spend an hour picking through a pile for the perfect board. Of course, I always rebuild the pile before I leave! Good manners go a long way in any ongoing business relationship. I also get to drool over the large number of exotics Bernie stocks.

Regards,

Ron

[David Keller NC]

That looks like it would be a good bonsai material - the shape is certainly right. Would it then be Microcarpa? Yeah, they're frequently grown as bonsai material (though I've not seen one labled "microcarpa":)).

Here's a very well known one in an important Bonsai collection:

http://guide.makebonsai.com/bonsai_species_guide_training.asp?SpeciesID=5042&Name=Cupressus_macrocarpa