Wondering if anyone has purchased Teak recently, and would pass on the going, today’s price for it ?
Currently, I am replacing my deck propane locker boxes, that were made of Honduras Mahogany, with Teak wood .
Here in Singapore, I have a Teak supplier that sold me 16 board foot of Teak for USD $ 13.30 per board foot.
I had to select through the stack, because most of this Teak is plantation grown in Indonesia, is flat sawn, and has wide spaced growth rings.
I did see in the 2004 West Marine catalog, that they sell Teak for (+ -) USD$ 23.00 per board foot, but getting a Teak price per board foot over the internet, has eluded my searches.
Teak in the Baltimore-Annapolis, Maryland area sells for $16 per board foot. Thickness is 4/4 (1") sawn. Milling charges to have the wood planed on three sides (S3) varies from mill to mill. 6/4 stock sells for $18 per board foot and 8/4 sells for $20 per board foot. All prices quoted are current.
In looking at the prices of Teak over the years I have found that the market has really gone wild. The only way to get a decent price is to buy in 250 to 500 bdft lots. I haven’t bought that much in five or six years but when I did I paid somewhere around $8.00 bdft for 4/4 unsurfaced. I called Dean Hardwoods in Wilmington NC today but the sales rep was out so I didn’t get a quote. Much of the Teak on the market today is plantation grown or mountain Teak and some of it is decent and some not, The good Burmese Teak is harder to find but some is still available at a price. One other source that carries Teak is a little company run by Mennonites in Hicksville, Md. The Hicksville Planing Mill has pretty good prices on all kiln dried domestic hard and softwoods. I just got 250 bdft of Honduras Mahogany from them and it is pretty nice. Most of what they have in imported lumber will be random width and length. I did get some decent widths in this Mahogany at 12" and 16" wide. Their phone number is 301-842-3474. If you call let it ring and when you think it rang long enough and are about to hang up let it ring some more, someone will answer. The quote on Teak they gave me today was $13.00 bdft 4/4 unsurfaced. I don’t believe they ship.
Thank All of you, for your replies, as I found no realistic Teak pricing on my own.
Yes, I do know that prices do vary a lot, depending on many things.
One of my quests was to see a real Teak tree, still growing in the ground, and that quest was fulfilled, first in Penang, Malaysia, many thanks to Bil, of BCC Zygote, then later on the near-by island group of Langkawi.
The Teak timber merchant I found in Singapore, was an old Chinese family business, and they waste nothing, even the sawdust is sold, to be used to make incense sticks, or “joss sticks” as they are called around here.
They really do know the value of their Teak stock, but it surprises them that we use it as trim on our boats, of course, owning a boat is so beyond their means, or expectations, that they think you must be extravagently rich and crazy to own your own boat in Singapore, let alone a quality boat like a BCC .
That sounds outrageous for ‘over there’. In '99 I paid $1.75 bdft for plantation grown teak in Trinidad. Or $2.50 bdft if you wasnted it planed four sides.
You might consider something else grown locally that will still fit the bill for propane boxes. I don’t know what they are using as ‘crap’ wood there but I’ve found some beautiful Apatong(?) used in shipping pallets…just an idea.
Hi Stan, I think all of us don’t like paying that high price for Teak, and yes I did consider using alternative woods, but the only similar type wood that was durable (resistant to insect attack, rot, and ultraviolet) that I could get is Changal (sp-?)
.
These days even Changal wood is expensive too, but for me this is a heavy dense hardwood and weighs twice as much as Teak.
I have had a real hard time getting wood or even information on different woods to choose from, over here.
Currently, I am on a quest to find a replacement bowsprit timber locally, and in a decent price range.
That search led me to a Malaysian softwood named Damar Minyak (Agathis Borneesis) AKA Malayan Kauri, but there is none to be had in Singapore, so this Easter week I will be on a road trip, traveling through Malaysian forests, sawmills, and boatyards, looking for the treasured timber.
There is a book that I think would help me to identify what local woods can be substituted and used on our boats, but at USD 360.00 from Amazon, it is beyond my means.
The book is “Plant Resources of South-East Asia”:Timber Trees, by: Lay Thong Hong . It is not available in the S’pore librarys, because their only copy is on permenate loan to a local private college.