Hawksbury Timber Practical Timber Knowledge
Ask Shane Find a timber business

Timber knowledge for people who make things

Learn timber properly. Buy it from good people.

For makers, brave DIYers and the independent yards that supply them.

I’m Shane. I deliver timber across the UK for a living and spend some spare time in my workshop. Here you’ll find plain guides, species notes and calculators, and the independent yards worth buying from.

Explore the guides Ask Shane
A customer holds a timber offcut while a merchant points to its end grain beside a closed tape measure and an unlabelled project sketch.AI generated image

The site

What you’ll find here

01 Guides How timber behaves, written for the job in front of you. Open → 02 Projects Start from what you’re making, from a shelf to a garden room, and see which timber suits it. Open → 03 Things to make Builds to have a go at, from a workbench to a pergola, each with the timber it needs. Open → 04 Species library What each timber is like, what it suits, and when to leave it. Open → 05 Find a seller Independent yards, sawmills and specialists I’d send a friend to. Open → 06 Find a maker Independent makers who’ll build it for you. Quote requests go straight to them. Open →

Reading the Grain

A practical education in timber, from the living tree to finished work.

Read it in order as a field manual, or open the track that matches the job in front of you.

Explore the whole series

Current track · 02 · Moisture & Movement

What the board does once it is yours: moisture content, movement, shrinkage and swelling, and how to design around all of it.

Latest episode 04 Tangential vs Radial Movement The last guide gave you the three directions and the ratio between them. This one is the practical half: telling which way a board was cut, and using that when you're choosing timber rather than just understanding it. Read the episode →

Timber knowledge

A species library you can actually use.

Why choose it, what it suits, how it behaves, and when another timber would serve you better. Mechanical & Botanical properties.

Explore the species library
A large old American White Oak tree with a broad trunk, standing on grass.Photo: Marty Aligata, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Tools

Work the quantities out before you commit.

Simple calculators for coverage, cladding, decking and volume — the sums I wish people had done before they ordered.

Use the calculators
  1. 01 Coverage Calculator Area and wastage.
  2. 02 Cladding Calculator Boards and coverage.
  3. 03 Decking Calculator Board quantities.
  4. 04 Timber Volume Calculator Length, width, thickness.

Projects

What are you making?

Pick the job. Each page says which timber suits it, the details that make it last, and the independent yards that sell it.

In the workshop

Around the house

Bigger builds

See all 14 projects

New things to make

Things to make Free Shed Plans Worth Building Eight free shed, log store and bike shed plans from independent makers, most of them in the UK and Ireland, each checked, with the… Things to make Free Raised Bed Plans Worth Building Seven free raised bed plans from the RHS, growing charities and independent gardeners, each checked, with the timber to ask a UK yard for… Things to make Free Workbench Plans Worth Building Nine free workbench plans from independent makers and woodworking publishers, each checked, with what it suits, the tools it really needs, and the timber…

All things to make →

Find timber

Buy the timber, or have it made.

41 independent sellers listed Where to buy good timber. I don’t sell timber. The directory lists independent merchants, sawmills and specialists I’d send a friend to: owner-run yards that sell to makers, not national chains. Find a timber merchant →
22 makers listed Or have it made. Some jobs are bigger than a weekend. The directory lists independent makers, from joiners to furniture and board makers, who take commissions. Quote requests go straight to them. Find a maker →

© Bailey Alexander / Unsplash License

Shane Fullwood

About Shane

I deliver timber for a living. Then I write it down.

Five days a week I’m around yards, boards and loads. Hawksbury is the notes from that: practical timber knowledge, written so you don’t have to pick it up the hard way.

About Shane → Contact →

Stuck on something awkward?

Most questions are free. When a job needs real digging, it’s from £49, and you’ll know the price before you pay.

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From the Cab

Notes from the road

What “graded” actually means at the yard

A grade isn’t a score for how “good” a piece of timber is. It tells you what rules it has been sorted against. Structural…

The gap between the trade and the makers

There seems to be a gap between the way timber is usually sold and the way many of us actually buy it. Merchants are…

All From the Cab posts →