Eucalyptus Marginata - Uses

Uses

Jarrah produces a dark, thick, tasty honey, but its wood is its main use. It is a heavy wood, with a specific gravity of 1.1 when green. Its long, straight trunks of richly coloured and beautifully grained termite-resistant timber make it valuable for cabinet making, flooring, panelling and outdoor furniture. The finished lumber has a deep rich reddish-brown colour and an attractive grain. When fresh, jarrah is quite workable but when seasoned it becomes so hard that conventional wood-working tools are useless on it. It is very durable and water resistant, making it a choice structural material for bridges, wharves, railway sleepers, ship building and telegraph poles.

Jarrah wood is very similar to that of Karri, Eucalyptus diversicolor. Both trees are found in the southwest of Australia, and the two woods are frequently confused. They can be distinguished by cutting an unweathered splinter and burning it: karri burns completely to a white ash, whereas jarrah forms charcoal. Most of the best jarrah has been logged in southwestern Australia.

A large amount was exported to the United Kingdom, where it was cut into blocks and covered with asphalt for roads. One of the large exporters in the late nineteenth century was M. C. Davies who had mills from the Margaret River to the Augusta region of the southwest, and ports at Hamelin Bay and Flinders Bay.

The local poet Dryblower Murphy wrote a poem in the early twentieth century about the potential to extract alcohol from jarrah timber "Comeanavajarrah", suggesting that the resource was an endless one for exploitation. Significantly, most of the companies that exploited jarrah in the early twentieth century no longer exist.

Jarrah has become more highly prized, and supports an industry that recycles it from demolished houses. Even so, in 2004, old 4-by-2-inch (10 by 5 cm) recycled jarrah is routinely advertised in Perth papers for under $1.50 per metre. Larger pieces of the timber were produced in the early history of the industry, from trees of great age, and these are also recovered from the demolition of older buildings.

Offcuts and millends, dead and fire-affected jarrah also sell as firewood for those using wood for heating in Perth, and 1-tonne (2,200 lb) loads can (as of Winter 2005) exceed $160 per load. Jarrah tends to work well in slow combustion stoves and closed fires and generates a greater heat than most other available woods.

Jarrah is used in musical instrument making, for percussion instruments and guitar inlays.

Because of its remarkable resistance to rot, jarrah is used to make hot tubs.