You have great numbers of radiata pine growing in South Australia. Not Tasmania I realize, but consider this: You may think they are not good planking due to being too soft, but white pine and white cedar are softer and have been used as gold standard boat planking in the east coast of the U.S. for 300 years. If you think it is too hard, note that Douglas Fir and Philippine Mahogany have been used for planking for 200 years and more and they are both harder. If you think it is not rot resistant enough, it can be pressure treated easily, especially with ammoniacal copper quaternary, and has been used outdoors as well as in laminated beams. If you think it is not dimensionally stable enough, the huge amount of radiata can be selected for rift sawn or quarter sawn. Moreover, Dark Red Meranti (Philippine Mahogany) has the same tangential to radial shrinkage ratio and has 12% volumetric shrinkage versus Radiata's 10%. If you think that knots disqualify it, white cedar on lobster boats in New England and Maritime Canada have had knots thumbprint-sized for 200 years and more and these are planed smooth or divoted and filled with sandable fillers like epoxy. While radiata is available comparatively or completely knot free. People may not be used to it, but they can get used to it whereupon it develops a history and a track record. It just needs someone willing to pressure treat the proper sized lumber.
Thanks for sharing this with the rest of us around the world. Very interesting.
You have great numbers of radiata pine growing in South Australia. Not Tasmania I realize, but consider this: You may think they are not good planking due to being too soft, but white pine and white cedar are softer and have been used as gold standard boat planking in the east coast of the U.S. for 300 years. If you think it is too hard, note that Douglas Fir and Philippine Mahogany have been used for planking for 200 years and more and they are both harder. If you think it is not rot resistant enough, it can be pressure treated easily, especially with ammoniacal copper quaternary, and has been used outdoors as well as in laminated beams. If you think it is not dimensionally stable enough, the huge amount of radiata can be selected for rift sawn or quarter sawn. Moreover, Dark Red Meranti (Philippine Mahogany) has the same tangential to radial shrinkage ratio and has 12% volumetric shrinkage versus Radiata's 10%. If you think that knots disqualify it, white cedar on lobster boats in New England and Maritime Canada have had knots thumbprint-sized for 200 years and more and these are planed smooth or divoted and filled with sandable fillers like epoxy. While radiata is available comparatively or completely knot free. People may not be used to it, but they can get used to it whereupon it develops a history and a track record. It just needs someone willing to pressure treat the proper sized lumber.
😀 'Promosm'