I just picked up 650 lf of 5/4 x 6 IPE (12′ and 14′ lengths). I was rather disappointed by the quality. Their crew and I probably dropped about 500 lf as rejects (knots, wild grain, snipe, tearout) in getting this much. Hate to see what I would have gotten if I had it shipped.
I am still not so impressed by what I did get. It is by far much poorer than the 8′ and 10′ lengths I got a few weeks earlier. Even the yard crew were surprised by how terrible it was.
The owner blamed it on a strike in Brazil, higher demand, Europeans buying and paying more, etc.
What happened to the all clear, straight-grained IPE I see on their website?
…karl, with 1.5 tons of IPE climatizing under a tarp
Replies
Surely we have depleted all their good wood too!
I'm just finishing about 3000 LF. I am noticing it slightly less good than some I used a couple years ago, but still far better than the fir decking I get nowdays. There definitely is more swirl grain. On this load, the 12 footers are alomost perfect, a few sixteen footers are going in as eleven to thirteens, and probably ten percent of the eight footers are crap. I was teaching the helper tofday about reading the grain before stitching it down.
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