BLOCK SYSTEM USED AT WAITOA

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 995, 11 June 1930, Page 6

BLOCK SYSTEM USED AT WAITOA

ours, because such is contrary to fact. Under separate cover I am sending you a sample of tongued and grooved Oregon lining and one of rimu, and I defy your secretary to procure anything from the State to compare with the latter. Both are fair samples and were cut from a top piece off each stack, and you will note that the rimu lining covers a little more than the Oregon. The ex yard price of the former is 245, while the latter is 23s fid.

“I would also like to say that X have seen many dressed lines turned out, and all were of the highest quality and far superior in finish to any imported soft wood timbers. “Your secretary has doubtless quite a good position, and I feel that he has been very unfair to decry the products of his own country or the country of his adoption, whichever it might be.” The president, Mr. H. C. Rosindale, said that he had seen the samples sent up from Dunedin, and the timber was excellent, particularly in respect to the manner in which the tongues fitted the grooves. Mr. Winsor said that the whole of the interview had not been published in the Dunedin paper; had it been, it would have been apparent that he was not really decrying New Zealand timber. But he thought that millers here might pay a little more attention to the working of timber. fie had seen samples of timber that was wonderfully dressed up on the face of it, but it was not so wonderful in regard to the tongueing and grooving. He had often asked merchants to make the tongues in tongued and groved timber fit better. This, he thought, could be done by means of a tapering tongue.

It was this fault —the tongues not fitting the grooves—that was responsible for a lot of floors squeaking, continued Mr. Winsor. Mr. William Thompson, in his remarks published recently in the Christchurch papers, had said rimu was the best timber on earth.

“I am not going to contradict Mr. Thompson,” said Mr. Winsor, “but isn’t it a great temptation to builders and architects to use imported timber when it is desirable that it should stay placed, without warping? We know we can’t use rimu in certain positions to advantage. If we used it on doors and windows exposed to the sou-west wind we'd have to go back to the job every five minutes or so.” Mr. Winsor went on to speak of the variation in the grading of timber obtained from the yards. Smaller trees were now being cut into scantlings than used to be the case, and the scantlings from these trees were bard to distinguish in the green state from matured timber.