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NEW TOY
Sept 11, 2007 7:36:24 GMT -5
Post by gramophoneshane on Sept 11, 2007 7:36:24 GMT -5
Interesting. It sounds like we were in a similar situation, but not just because of our ties with "The Mother Country". Ever since settlement, one of the most common timber used here was red cedar. Depending on the cut, it can look remarkably like mahogany in both natural colour and grain, but it's really light and very soft. Sometimes the only way to tell the difference is to see if you can dig your fingernail into the timber. By the late 1890's,supply was drying up, so over the next 10 or so yrs, you see other timbers like tasmanian & silky oak, queensland maple, and white cedar being used, with red cedar a thing of the past. We were also getting the english oak furniture imported into the 1930's, but not in huge amounts, although some oz gramophone companies used english oak for all their cabinets, but I suspect only to more closely resemble the better quality english machines.. You see some Qld maple furniture and gramophones that have been stained to look like mahogany, (which has a very similar grain pattern but is yellow) being made into the 1920's, but the oak's were far more popular.
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