Everything you ever wanted to know about larch
In Europe’s Alpine regions there are water troughs, bridges and boats made of Larch that have lasted centuries even though they have been continuously submerged in water.
In his history of Venice, Cristoforo Tentori wrote that most of the city’s palaces and houses sit atop hundreds of thousands of Siberian Larch piles, driven into the swamps in the early Middle Ages.
Instead of decaying the Larch, submerged in oxygen-poor, mineral-rich water has petrified like stone and lasted for more than a thousand years.
Larch is unusual - it’s a pine that drops its needles in the winter. It’s very dense behaving more like a hardwood than a softwood. It likes being wet and ages very well outside, silvering off and hardening as its resins oxidise.
And while it has hardwood qualities it turns, planes and shapes nicely, bends well with steam and sands easily to a smooth finish.
At Fair Wood we have a pack of Larch salvaged after the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires by Jason Alexandra who then stored it carefully undercover for the last 42 years.
Jason, a nurseryman with an interest in woodwork, was approached by a neighbour who had burnt trees on their property that were going to be piled up and burned.
Jason found a mobile sawmiller from Gippsland who could cut the logs into timber. Working together, they managed to save five cubic metres of beautiful timber that was bound for the bonfire.
Word got around and Jason spent the next year salvaging and milling burnt Blackwood, Redwood, Chestnut and this Larch from private properties all around Mt Macedon and the Dandenong Ranges.
Larch's grain is so beautifully pronounced (that's it in the pic below) it looks like it's been drawn on. It's so rare in Australia this is probably the only Larch timber we'll ever see at Fair Wood.
Uses: furniture, joinery, boatbuilding, wet areas
Dimensions: Machined to 38mm with widths ranging between 120 & 180 some live edges.
In his history of Venice, Cristoforo Tentori wrote that most of the city’s palaces and houses sit atop hundreds of thousands of Siberian Larch piles, driven into the swamps in the early Middle Ages.
Instead of decaying the Larch, submerged in oxygen-poor, mineral-rich water has petrified like stone and lasted for more than a thousand years.
Larch is unusual - it’s a pine that drops its needles in the winter. It’s very dense behaving more like a hardwood than a softwood. It likes being wet and ages very well outside, silvering off and hardening as its resins oxidise.
And while it has hardwood qualities it turns, planes and shapes nicely, bends well with steam and sands easily to a smooth finish.
At Fair Wood we have a pack of Larch salvaged after the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires by Jason Alexandra who then stored it carefully undercover for the last 42 years.
Jason, a nurseryman with an interest in woodwork, was approached by a neighbour who had burnt trees on their property that were going to be piled up and burned.
Jason found a mobile sawmiller from Gippsland who could cut the logs into timber. Working together, they managed to save five cubic metres of beautiful timber that was bound for the bonfire.
Word got around and Jason spent the next year salvaging and milling burnt Blackwood, Redwood, Chestnut and this Larch from private properties all around Mt Macedon and the Dandenong Ranges.
Larch's grain is so beautifully pronounced (that's it in the pic below) it looks like it's been drawn on. It's so rare in Australia this is probably the only Larch timber we'll ever see at Fair Wood.
Uses: furniture, joinery, boatbuilding, wet areas
Dimensions: Machined to 38mm with widths ranging between 120 & 180 some live edges.
Average length: 3800mm
103x38 $32.50 per lineal metre
180x38 $44.00 per lineal metre
103x38 $32.50 per lineal metre
180x38 $44.00 per lineal metre
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