John Fairweather Specialty Timber Solutions - Turning Trees into something special
Eucalyptus timbers especially
Yard: 162 Harleston road, Sefton, North Canterbury. Directions »
All correspondence and small deliveries to the office at 180 Cavendish road, Casebrook, Christchurch, 8051.
Phone 021 2110705 email: jrf@xtra.co.nz
We specialise in quality hardwood solid timber flooring. We take logs and mill them carefully to produce stress relieved timber, then dry and machine the timber into specialty products. This comprehensive process requires skill and specialised machinery.
Bring your log or logs to me and I will mill them into whatever size timber you want.
My Wood-Mizer LT70 can cut slabs up to 700mm wide. The mill can handle logs up to 6m long and 1m in diameter.
This service costs from $250 per hour.
Recent jobs include benchtops, railway sleepers cut for flooring, and sundry feature logs for joinery work.
Bring your timber to me and I will machine it into your required profile.
The Logosol planer moulder can produce a variety of machined timber.
I have some profile knives in stock and can have a knife for any profile prepared.
The log specifications are:
Small end diameter >40cm
Log length 3m
Average diameter 45cm but can take up to 1m
No branches, some small branch stubs acceptable.
Freshly felled/crosscut.
Main timber species:
Eucalyptus
Machined timber:
Tongue and groove flooring
Parquet flooring
Skirting boards and mouldings.
Laminated timber:
Benchtops
Stair treads
Tables
Milled timber:
Outdoor above-ground use
Outdoor in-ground use (Ironbark)
Timber for fine furniture
Decking
Yard rails
Bridges.
We supply Eucalyptus nitens, fastigata and regnans timber. These are the readily-available ash eucalypts in Canterbury. Nitens and fastigata are used for flooring.
Are your eucalyptus timbers suitable for flooring? How hard are the ash eucalypts?
Studies of NZ grown nitens report densities of around 550kg/m3 and Janka hardness of 3.6kN. These results are similar to matai (610kg/m3 and 2.7kN) and rimu (560kg/m3 and 3.5kN).
How stable are eucalyptus timbers?
We carefully dry freshly-milled timber by slowly air drying and then finishing in a kiln. The dried timber is completely stable. Research by Scion shows that shows that eucalyptus nitens flooring has similar qualities to commercially available European Oak flooring, see: https://www.nzffa.org.nz/system/assets/6118/SWP-T097.pdf
How dry is your T&G flooring?
We kiln dry the flooring to 12%MC or lower. At this moisture content your floor will slightly increase in moisture content after it is installed and this will ensure that the boards fit tightly together.
Should we rack out the flooring in our house to allow it to adjust to our local environment?
If your house is in Canterbury or a region with a similar climate there is no need to take this step. If you live in a region with more moisture, such as the West Coast or Auckland, then racking out is a good idea. This will allow the wood to adjust to the local conditions and reach a new equilibrium moisture content.
Can we store T&G timber while we wait for the house to be made ready for the flooring?
Storing timber only works if you can keep it in a warm and dry environment. We strongly recommend that you arrange for the flooring to arrive the week before it is due to be installed and install it immediately.
What sizes does your T&G flooring come in?
We supply flooring as ex. 100mm, ex. 125mm, or ex. 150mm. The cover width of these boards is 83mm, 109mm and 131mm respectively. Using boards wider than 150mm is risky because with changes in temperature or humidity, the width of the floor board can decrease and may show as gaps. Such gaps will be larger for wide boards.
What do we do if we want very wide boards?
The safest way to achieve wide flooring is to go with our wide plank flooring option. We make this in a cross-laminated, two layer construction using all eucalyptus timber and with a thin layer (the lamella) of eucalyptus timber around 10mm on the top to produce a board at 16mm thick, or we make it by attaching the lamella to 12mm birch plywood to produce a board a 19mm thick.
Is it necessary to sand the floor before applying a finish?
We recommend that your floor is given a light sand before applying your finish.
What do you recommend that we use to finish our floor?
We are not able to make recommendations because we do not work with finishes. However, the following principles apply. You have a choice between hard wax oils or polyurethanes. Hard wax oils are easy to apply and can be touched up in a particular place if needed. Polyurethanes may provide a harder wearing surface but they cannot be touched up in one spot so if some form of damage occurs the whole floor is re-finished. Polyurethanes are either turpentine based or water based. The latter have less odour and dry more quickly.