Tasmanian Triumph
A house starring Tasmanian oak has won three ATFA awards, including Overall Winner Floor of the Year. The Australasian Timber Flooring Association (ATFA) Awards for excellence were held in late August and Tasmanian Timber finished the night with three awards including...
DES Edge System
Waiting for edge protection has frustrated many an F&T installer and builder. Thanks to this simple and safe system, that regular delay may now be a thing of the past. There are few rules of thumb that apply to every fabricator, but it’s safe to say that a dislike...
Get the Framing Right
Family-owned Gem Frame & Truss has kept growing throughout housing downturns by focusing on its relationships with builders and suppliers such as Framequip. Talking with Malcolm Fraser, you wouldn’t know he’s based in a state with an officially contracting housing...
Building the Future
The message at Frame 2019’s conference on was that growing timber’s slice of the market will benefit the whole industry. Here’s our recap of Day 1. The opening of 2019’s Frame Australia: Timber Offsite Construction saw organiser Kevin Ezard introduce the event with...
Small But Strong
A pint-sized but tough and manoeuvrable new forklift has improved speed and safety at Margaret River Mitre 10, and helped the business increase stock levels on site. You can tell when someone likes a tool. It gets used a lot, and instead of being referred to by its...
Timber Events
The WFTN Charity Cocktail Fundraiser and Boutique Timbers Annual Timber Auction are both coming up soon. This Saturday, 24 August 2019, the annual Women in Forests & Timber Network Charity Cocktail Fundraiser will be held at the Pineapple Hotel, 706 Mains Road,...
Safety Efforts
Industry groups and associations are focussed on increasing safety in the timber industry. To be blunt, most safety initiatives are a bit boring. But they can all save or make your business money, which is anything but dull. In most cases that comes through...
Braking Good
Hundegger’s Sam Rowe gets his motor running to help save lives. If you were looking for Hundegger’s Sam Rowe around August 17, you would have had a hell of a job finding him. Somewhere near Byron would have been your best bet. For the third year running, he was busy...
Social Success
Timber-based systems have been the key factor for Big River and their partners building faster, better and cheaper public housing in Victoria. Housing is an essential part of life, but in many regions of Australia, large numbers of people are unable to afford to buy...
Safety Pays
Forestry and Construction are two of the worst industries for safety, but a focus on WH&S can be literally profitable. The safety data isn’t very reassuring for the timber industry. While things have definitely improved over time, the three sectors that cover most...
Responsible Builders
One of the UK’s leading engineers and building safety experts recently talked with young Australian designers. This is a condensed version of her opinion piece. Dame Judith Hackitt recently visited Australia as a guest of RMIT’s School of Property, Construction and...
Ligna Overview
The best of the timber industry were on show at Ligna 2019. Here are some of the highlights. The stats are impressive. Some 90,000 guests walked through the doors at Ligna 2019, where they saw over 1500 exhibitors across 132,000m2 of floorspace. There were familiar...
Right for the Role?
Performance management in the workplace The first question in a performance management issue is what constitutes poor performance? Often an employer will know when an employee is not performing their role properly, but before addressing the issue, he or she needs to:...
Get it Straight
German measuring specialist Stabila is celebrating 130 years. For a measuring company, there’s no more logical way to celebrate a big birthday than with a set of celebratory spirit levels. Stabila has launched a limited-edition 1889 Anniversary Edition set. Each...
Data Driven
When the Tilling Group began to redesign their Smart Portal, they quickly realised they had created a whole new set of tools for both their business and their customers. Many people like to quote Thomas Hobbes’ famous aphorism ‘Knowledge is power’, but in the 21st...
A New Cut
Bringing in a new cutting saw – even a high-tech version – is a surprisingly straightforward experience but it succeeds or fails based on the quality of service. March saw a gathering of fabricators and other timber specialists at Multinail’s Stapylton headquarters to...
Timber Marketing
Stirling Machinery has turned to its customers to get the message out about their product. Its first production with Thor’s Hammer in the ACT shows just how strong a story timber can tell. One of the biggest trends in advertising over the past few years is the...
Winning Together
For Tilling Timber and Independent Hardware Group, a long-standing partnership has developed into new ways to drive sales growth and support independent timber merchants. When the winner for Trade Supplier of the Year was announced at February’s IHG Awards of...
Floors With More
ASH’s new engineered flooring is exactly what the customer asks for. Australian Sustainable Hardwoods (ASH) has launched Australian Oak, an innovative and customisable engineered flooring range based on the results of an exhaustive survey of flooring specifiers, which...
A Grain of Truth
High quality abrasives make all the difference when it comes to floor sanding, but not all are created equal. By Steven Hutchinson, Norton Abrasives In today’s world it can be difficult to determine the authenticity of the products we use. Many products on the market...
Safety Culture
The NSW Centre for Work Health and Safety needs businesses to help their research. If you’ve ever seen the fall-out from poorly guarded machinery you will no doubt be motivated to ensure it doesn’t happen again. The traumatic injuries associated with this hazard are...
Best Dressed
Timber cladding combines architectural beauty with a long-lasting, natural, fire-resistant product that brings multiple benefits to the end user without high costs or installation difficulties. Every building needs a skin. Whether timber-framed domestic residences, or...
Fire Safety
Stronger fire protection requirements for external structures in NSW are being missed by some timber suppliers, but the Rural Fire Service is available to help. Timber merchants are generally good about regulation. They know the product they sell has to be fit for...
A Path That Will Last
Accoya modified timber forms the basis of a long-lasting refurbishment to a popular Queensland boardwalk. Noosa is one of Queensland’s key tourism hotspots, and a combination of big crowds, coastal climate and semi-regular extreme weather events on the Sunshine Coast...
