Blog – Latest News
Huon pine and boat builders
Boat builders love Huon pine In this video, courtesy of our friends at the Australian Wooden Boat Festival, Randal Morrison tells us why Huon pine is so important as a boat building timber.
Covid 19 update
Yes, we are operating fully despite the Covid 19 restrictions Our sawmill at Lynchford is operating it's usual hours of 8.00 - 4.00 Monday to Thursday. Social distancing is not a problem at this site, as we've never seen those blokes standing closer than 1.5...
Award Winning Tasmania
Award winning Tasmania - a quick video tour of our Strahan shop Henry Terry and David Foster visited the Strahan shop as part of their filming project called Award Winning Tasmania. The finished product will be shown on broadcast TV shortly, and in the meantime...
Got a big lathe?
Got a big lathe? Have we got some timber for you. These Covid 19 shutdowns are causing many people to investigate the far reaches of their cupboards, sheds and storerooms and we have certainly done that. The staff at our Queenstown mill have pulled out these monster...
We’re alive to tell the story – a childhood at Princess River.
We're alive to tell the story - a childhood at Princess River. Tasmanian Special Timbers' staff member Vicki Knowles (nee Bradshaw) was interviewed for the Western Wilds' Story Stop project. Vicki told us delightful and hair raising stories of her childhood...
Not Just Any Bush
It's not just any bush, if you smell it again your memory goes back Tasmanian Special Timbers' co-owner Randal Morrison was interviewed for the Western Wilds Story Stop project. He reminisced about his time as a child working on Huon Pine with his sawmiller...
You don’t need paint or pencils
Beautiful timber begets, provokes and encourages beautiful things to be made from it. Sometimes our clients will send us photographs of the finished items they have made from our timber, and we are pleased to celebrate that work on screens in our shop, and on our...
Malt Whisky By The Fire
It’s many people’s vision of heaven – sipping a dram of malt whisky while toasting your feet by the fire. Tasmania is beautifully situated with the raw materials for fine whisky making: an abundance of pure, soft water; good quality barley; and large areas of peat...
Drought With Legs
Bill Gammage, in his brilliant book The Biggest Estate on Earth describes fire as ‘drought with legs’. He also explains how ‘eucalypts and fire formed an alliance, which people joined’.Australians living in almost the entire continent are familiar with...
It Takes A Village
If you think that places like Queenstown and Strahan are isolated, spare a thought for those living in the little settlement that surrounded the Princess River sawmill, in the King Valley east of Queenstown. Who came first, the cattle ranch or the Bradshaw family?...
The Huon Piners Had It Easy
In a way, the Huon piners had it easy: Row 20–50km across the Harbour and up a river, find a place on the steep banks to get out of the dinghy, walk a few paces into the forest to find a good Huon pine tree, spend all day with axe and crosscut saw cutting...
Welcome
Welcome to the new website of Tasmanian Special Timbers. This rebuilt site marks a new chapter in Tasmanian Special Timbers' operations: while our sawmill near Queenstown and the shop on the Strahan waterfront will still sell the majority of our...