Victorian Red Ironbark (Eucalyptus sideroxylon) in the wild

[Dennis La Varenne]

To anyone interested, here are some pics of Victorian Red Ironbark. You may have seen it at the local timber dealers, but this is what it looks like in the wild.

These pictures were taken in East Gippsland up in among some very hungry ridges around an area of logging coups. They are treated as rubbish trees in this area and just pushed over, piled up and burnt when the coup is logged out.

These trees proliferate in the Central Victorian Woodland forests all through Ballarat and Bendigo where I have seen them quite often years ago but not known what they were.

In this part of East Gippsland, they are very widely spaced high on the ridges and don't seem to get as fat as their lowland counterparts in Western Victoria - probably not regarded as yielding enough wood to make them worth taking I suppose. Those of you from the western half of Victoria will probably recognise them at once. They are all through the goldfields areas I noticed.

It can be got if you can find the right people to ask. The bark must be taken off wet and it comes off easily using a barking bar or similar tool. Dry, it is true to name. It needs to be quartered quickly and the ends and underbark surfaces coated with PVC asap to prevent radial shrinkage and checking.

It hates edged tools and rips badly, but using varying grades of abrasive or rasps and files, it works well. The majority of a natural log is sapwood, but if you can manage it, it seems to like having a veneer of heartwood (a raw meat colour) left on the belly if you can manage it. It seems to keep them straighter - more compression resistant.

On the back the growth rings of sapwood (a light margarine colour) can be cut through without any real problems. But, I have seen and shot some bows where there has been no heartwood left and these seem to be holding together well despite some frets which I have relieved with Ascham pricks (for want of a better term). My guess is that my apprentice bowyer drew them on his tiller too soon before they were properly dry.

Dennis La Varenne

[jape]

Thank you. I have everything but that on my place in Central Vic - looks like I shall be going for a drive and a wander about in the rain!
jape

[yeoman]

Fantastic resource Dennis! Thanks for sharing.

Dave

[Dennis La Varenne]

To all,

Following some researches on the Vic Department of Primary Industries website about the tree depicted above, I am forced to recant.

The specie is indeed Victorian Red Ironbark (one of two species), but it is NOT E. sideroxylon. It is almost certainly E. tricarpa.

Tricarpa has white flowers and lives in Eastern Gippsland going northwards following the coast up into southern NSW.

Sideroxylon, on the other hand is also termed E. sideroxylon rosea because it has a pink flower and grows in the Box Ironbark forests of central and northern Victoria, through central NSW up into lower Qld.

I just need to confirm with my Gippsland mate that the colour of the flowers is white because he has seen them in flower.

So, as Dave remarked in another post, the difference in the grain structure between what he has been using from timber yards and what I have been playing around with may well be explained by the difference of specie.

The only visual clues that seem to differentiate the species apart from the fruits and flowers is that tricarpa is generally slenderer and taller with a lot of clear trunk to the lower branches, whilst sideroxylon is shorter with a more spreading canopy and a shorter trunk up to the lower branches. But, the bark is the same for both species and is a dead giveaway. It is VERY black as if it has been recently scorched, and deeply corrugated.

Here is a URL to have a look at -
http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/dpi/nreninf.n ... 8e654?open

There are other sites. All you have to do is google Eucalyptus sideroxylon and Eucalyptus tricarpa.

Jape,
You shouldn't have any difficulty finding plenty in the Box Ironbark forests in central Vic.

Dennis La Varenne

[coolhippy80]

sorry to kick tis back up... but
1) why can't i see the pictures? is anyone else getting the same problem?

2) would this possibly grow in northern tassie? (its close to vic....)

thanks,
Gus.

[Glenn]

Gus I can't see the pictures either. Timber qualities can vary greatly even in trees of the same species depending on the climate they grow in and the soil quality. Tassie Blackwood is a classic because it is a very good timber but it also grows up here in Queensland as well but the Queensland timber is nowhere near as good. Same with spotted gum, the old timber cutters considered any spotty grown east of the Great Divide as rubbish-firewood and the best came from west of the Great Divide, and I can say that my experience as a house builder and making many selfbows that they are spot on.
The best thing to do is to try a few bows of different styles and designs and see how they go. I read in a text book once that Australian timbers werent suitable for selfbows but that was rubbish and the reverse was true which was proven by trial and error
I even made a selfbow out of flooded gum a while ago, not the best selfbow I have ever made but it did work and I could shoot game with it no worries but I think if it were used to make an all wood composite bow than it would come into it's own...Glenn...

[Dennis La Varenne]

Gus,

We have had a couple of rebuilds of the site recently. Sometimes old pics don't re-link with the upgrade. Can't be helped. However, I have reposted some of the pics of the East Gippsland Red Ironbark (Eucalyptus tricarpa). Bootle doesn't list any of the Ironbarks as extending down to Tasmania, but that doesn't mean anything necessarily.

Tricarpa tends to grow up on ridges in pretty hungry slatey ground and doesn't seem to mind the sun as it tends to grow in pretty exposed areas. It is a harvestable timber, but in E. Gippsland in the places where I have seen it in logging coups it tends to be pushed over onto the mullock heaps and burnt in preference to other species.

They do grow much thicker than that shown in these pics, but that size is about as much as a bowyer can handle. It is pretty heavy and if you don't get the bark off while it is wet, you will need a few sticks of jelly to move it. It comes off quite easy with a barking bar when it is just felled if you can get a logger to give you a tree before it gets burnt or left under the mullock heap to start rotting. It is not of equal quality from tree to tree or even from one end to the other.

Dennis La Varenne