I'm just getting started and need to know the best places to get good quality material from in the East Midlands. I was given some rough sawn planks with the bark sill on and would like to get more but don't know where to go for the best. I'm based in Earl Shilton near Leicester. Can anybody help me?

I welcome both of you to the forum!

You should check out this link, there's bound to be a couple of places near you.

Thanks for the link it looks very encouraging. There are several suppliers in my area and I will check them out. Thanks again.

Jan,

if you are just getting started, then I would always suggest working with pine for a few years, until your skills and confidence can be unleashed on the more expensive hardwoods without fear of making a hash of it!

For softwoods in East Anglia (and they have 2 branches in Cambridge) then Ridgeons is pretty much unbeatable, with huge stocks of quality pine well stored indoors and generally at pretty good prices.

Mike 

Thanks Mike,

I must rephrase that I'm just getting started in England, use to be a procurement forester for a sawmill in South Africa, and did a fair amount of woodworking in my spare time and often while i should have been working too! So now i need to set up a new shop in the garage with limited space 3.0 m x 5.1m. Since i'm used to working on a combination machine i will go that route.

Jan

Sorry Jan!!

Ridgeons is only any good for softwood. Olly's link will get you started looking for proper timber merchants and woodyards........but there is always the Yellow Pages!!

Your workshop is a metre or so narrower than mine, but the same sort of length. I took the early decision that floor-space is more valuable than machinery, so have not bought a table saw. It isn't just the footprint of the machine.....it is the area you need around it to work. My planer-thicknesser is near the doors, so that I can feed long lengths through the door. Instead of a table saw, I opted for a bandsaw, which has turned out, luckily, to be a brilliant choice. It occupies a very small area, need a small area for working around it, and can do all the ripping and re-sawing that I need, as well as curved work and all sorts of other sawing tasks.

So, that would be my recommendation to you. Forget the combination machine, and buy a bandsaw and planer/thicknesser seperately. Unless you are making windows and doors I think that a decent router table is probably as useful as a spindle moulder.

Whereabouts in SA are you from? I know the country quite well, although I know Botswana and Namibia rather better......

Mike 

Hi Mike

I come from a little town called Wilderness, its on the southern coast in SA close to a town called George. It would be about halfway between Capetown an Port Elizabeth.

In Ely is a timber merchant: Aitken & Cribbs they seem to stock most timbers and is only 10 minutes from me.

Since my shop will be in the garage  I have the advantage of being able to use the door to add to length. I'm now busy with my first project a workbench, I'm at the planning and drawing stage any tips would be welcome.

Jan

Jan,

I know it reasonably well......near Nysner. My parents honeymooned there, as it happens! Quite different from the fens!

Mike

Welcome to you both, Hope to see what you make placed in your galleries very soon.

Good luck

Marc

Hi Jan

Its good to see the odd (ODD ) SAfrican in the forum. I have just spent a long weekend at Fairy Knowe.

Toothy

hi folks, i,m also struggling to find good wood at reasonable prices. i,m in liverpool but prepared to travel within reason 50miles or so. Itseems to be a concern for most beginners sometimes its hard to tell if the wood is worth what they want for it.

i've been using european oak which iv'e found difficult to work any ideas on a more user friendly wood.

thanks.folks  mike shields

Hi Michael,

I can't help you find a supplier in your area but, I have some suggestions for hardwoods to try - ash, sycamore, cherry, maple and even walnut you should find are easier to work than oak. Walnut can look lovely but, even the American stuff is expensive and you would have to account for a lot of sapwood and wastage. You can get similar problems with American Cherry, although it's not usually as bad.

 hi mike

 have you tried ambrose mcgrath in liverpool,i usually buy offcuts from there they usually have a few different species ,its on the dock road level with the chinese supermarket and next door to terrys timber,or there is a brooks brothers in skem ,they should be on the net.

good luck nick.

WHERE TO BUY WOOD AGAIN. I mean real wood not the stuff you get offered in DIY stores. I would like to buy well seasoned and kiln dried unsteamed beech to make small boxes and cabinets. In my innocence I thought the web would soon reveal scores of suppliers of smooth finished board (not ply or veneered boards) in 6 mm, 10 mm and 12 mm thickness and various suitable widths but to my surprise it seems that I am expected to travel deep into the forest and fell a large tree with my pen knife and carving axe, cut it into planks using grandfathers two man saw and a sawing pit, stack it outside for four years, build a drying kiln meanwhile then dry the wood out further before smoothing its surfaces with side axe and adze. It would be fun but I would rather use the time making some toys for my grandaughters.

I am joking and I have discovered stockists of 2 x 4 etc finished timber in large quantity but I do not want to buy a tonne of it and cannot find anything else. I could get a mill to plane it down for me at considerable cost but I know that SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE must know where to get such material. Every other set of tools comes in little boxes and beech wood boxes are readily available for storing artists materials etc.

Help please,

Bernard 

Hi Bernard and welcome to the forums.

It would help if you could give us a rough idea of your location - just a county will do.

Hi, Thanks for your welcome. Just after posting this first question I discovered on the site references to Windebanks in Corsham and Yandle in Martock who are both within easy reach of me in Wiltshire.

This does not help overmuch as they both seem to wish to sell me timber thats too thick.

Regards,

Bernard 

I could throw several other names at you as well (including Interesting Timbers in Emborough, other side of Bath from you) but they are all likely to charge extra for prepared timber. The thinnest sawn sections you are likely to find are going to be 3/4" thick - thining back to some sycamore I bought from Yandles a few weeks backs.

If you don't have a planer and thicknesser to machine your own timber, perhaps there is someone on the forums near you (like Al...? ) who would be prepared to help you out with that?

I recently bought over £200 worth of 1" and 1½" brown oak from Vasterns in Calne (they have two yards/sawmills in Wiltshire) and the quality looks good. They had quite a bit of it too, where I've struggled to locate it almost anywhere else locally... They were happy to let me choose my own boards, which is always nice. At £37.10 and £45 per cubic foot respectively, I don't think I could say their prices were "unreasonable".