Preparing Timber
Windy Moor Project
Wednesday 13 December 2017
Part of the project to install a boardwalk over Windy
Moor is to stain the timber it will be built from. The reason for this is a
desire of the park management to make it blend in with the environment and the
colour chosen was chocolate.
After milling and being treated with preservative, the
timber was ready for the staining to be carried out. We headed off to the
sawmill near Osterley on a fine and warm day, where the timber had been placed
in stacks ready for the work. We worked in three teams and once a stack was
stained Tad, the sawmill owner, replaced them with another lot.
It takes longer and requires more stain for the first
coat, but we managed to finish all planks before lunch. In the afternoon
session we comfortably disposed of the second coat in a little over 1 ½ hours
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| Some of the stained timber with Adrian, Shirley, Greg K, Greg B, Dave ,Trevor and Tad |
One of the preferences of the Tasmanian Community Fund
when giving funds is for the supply of goods and services to be from Tasmanian
businesses where possible. We used the
local supplier The Tasmanian Paint Shop for the stain and the sawmill Timber
Growers Direct for the timber.
Trevor from Mount Field, who has many years of
experience with using timber in park projects, was very impressed with the quality
of the timber. It is extensively dried
before cutting up and as the plantation is in a relatively slow growing area the
timber is practically knot free. Allowing
the timber to dry out, reduces the number of helicopter flights required to fly
the timber into the site and a reduction in knots and the slow growth of the
timber means that the timber is stronger, has less potential to warp and
deteriorate over time.
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| Staining the timber Peter and Trevor |
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| Staining the timber Greg k, Dave, Tad, Greg B and Adrian |
The timber stained is
for the construction of a boardwalk over a badly damaged section of Windy Moor,
which is crossed by walkers on their way to and from Mount Field East. A
distance of 910 metres will be hardened in this manner.
This project has been
made possible by a grant from the Tasmanian Community Fund as the primary
funding source. The Friends of Mount Field also received vital contributions
enabling the work to proceed from (listed alphabetically) the Australian Plants
Society, Hobart Walking Club, Gregory Kidd, NRM South, Pandani Bushwalking
Club, Parks & Wildlife Service, Wildcare Inc. and Phyl and Bob Wyatt
For over 15 years the
Friends of Mount Field have worked on maintaining and repairing the walking
tracks that form part of the Mount Field East Circuit Walk, together with the
side tracks to Seagers Lookout, Beatties Tarn and to Lake Webster via Kangaroo
Moor. Repairing and rehabilitating the
part over Windy Moor has always been an ambition of the group as well as a high
priority for the national parks managers, but until the Tasmanian Community
Fund provided a substantial grant it was not possible.
Some data worth including.
The boardwalk is to extend for 912 metres and is
double planking. Each plank is 6 metres long, 200mm wide and 50mm deep and that
totals 304 individual boards. This took
111 litres of stain. Only the top
surface was stained and was done using rollers.
The specifications for the stain indicated coverage of
12 sq m per L, but with raw planking
timber that soaks the first coat quickly, that cannot be achieved. This was discovered on a recent project, but
that was after the budget for the Windy Moor grant had already been submitted. As the cost of stain is substantial, a
successful request was made to Wildcare to fund the shortfall.
Adrian made some calculations which are valuable to
have reference
MINUTES per board first
coat 3.42 MINUTES per board second coat 2.42
MINUTES per board two coats 5.84
COVERAGE first coat sq m per L 5.40
COVERAGE second coat sq m per L 8.29
COVERAGE average sq m per L per coat 6.54
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