- TIMBERBIZ.COM.AU - A La Une - 04/Aug 00:15

Perfect timber doesn’t make perfect sense

For decades, the industry has leaned toward a particular kind of beauty in timber — clean, consistent, controlled. Somewhere along the way, we started asking wood to behave like plastic: predictable, polished, and repeatable. But real timber doesn’t work like that. And that’s exactly why it’s worth choosing. Sources: Timberbiz, Crafted Hardwoods We don’t need another material that looks like everything else. We need materials that feel real. That carry weight. That tell a story. Timber isn’t beautiful in spite of its character. It’s beautiful because of it. Those veins, knots and tonal shifts aren’t defects; they’re evidence. Of growth. Of seasons. Of something alive. Designers love character. Texture. Uniqueness. But when it comes to timber, despite the industry’s appetite for individuality, the spec sheet often defaults to Select. But the pursuit of perfection doesn’t come cheap. When Select becomes the gold standard, anything that falls outside that narrow visual ideal gets sidelined as inferior. That creates real consequences — especially in Australia. It limits how much of our timber can be used in premium applications, drives up costs, and adds unnecessary complexity to sourcing and processing. And it reinforces an aesthetic that doesn’t reflect the diversity of our native forests or the future of sustainable design. In parts of the world like North America or Russia, where timber comes from vast, even-aged forests, uniformity is easier to achieve. But Australian hardwoods tell a different story. Our native hardwoods are shaped by our unique climate and ecology. That means Select Grade, with its demand for visual uniformity, is genuinely rare here. And that’s not a flaw — it’s a reflection of the landscape, and an opportunity to work with materials that embody authenticity and resilience. Much of the timber used in interiors and joinery is appearance-graded — assessed purely on looks, not performance. Under AS 2796, boards are sorted into Select, Standard, or Feature Grade based on surface features like knots, veins, and colour variation. The issue? Under AS 2796, Select Grade sits at the peak — not because it’s stronger or more durable, but because it’s the cleanest. It’s timber with the least visible variation: no knots, no gum veins, no colour shifts. In other words, timber that looks the least like a tree. But here’s the thing: Select Grade doesn’t mean the most durable, sustainable, or practical choice. It’s just the one that fits a narrow visual ideal. And yet, it’s become the default “premium.” It’s what’s specified, stocked, and expected often without a second thought. But when the entire system is built around chasing visual perfection, it leaves a lot of good timber behind. Grading happens early in the supply chain usually at the mill, right after the timber is sawn. But what gets graded as “valuable” is shaped much further down the line. Specifiers might be downstream of grading, but their preferences influence what’s considered valuable upstream. If Select is always in demand, mills will push to meet that spec, even if it means discarding usable material. The reality? Only a small fraction of milled hardwood meets the strict visual criteria for Select. In prioritising visual purity, we’ve created a system that undervalues the vast majority of what our forests can actually provide. Grading expectations don’t exist in a vacuum. They’re shaped by local species and forestry practices. In regions like the US, Canada, or Russia, large, even-aged forests, often dominated by softwoods, make it easier to achieve visual uniformity and produce high volumes of Select Grade timber. Australia tells a different story. Our native hardwoods grow slowly, develop dense grain, and naturally show more variation. As a result, Select Grade timber — especially at scale — is genuinely scarce here. So, if you’re specifying Select in an Australian hardwood species, just know: you’re asking for the rarest slice of the log. Not stronger, not more durable — just smoother looking, and a whole lot harder to come by. It’s easy to point to the grading system as the issue. But standards don’t exist in a vacuum — they respond to what the market demands. The way timber is graded, processed, sold, and specified is deeply interconnected. And when it comes to appearance-grade hardwoods, our Standard reflects long-held assumptions about what timber should look like. But those assumptions didn’t appear out of nowhere. They’ve been shaped over decades by consumer preferences, commercial pressures, and imported ideals often from places where Select Grade is more easily sourced due to different species or forestry practices. Australia isn’t geared for large-scale Select Grade production. Yet the pressure to meet the aesthetic persists — to the point where Select Grade material must be imported to satisfy expectations, rather than drawing on the unique material we already have. If the standard isn’t serving our forests or our future maybe it’s time to ask: who is it serving?  Change doesn’t start in the forest. It starts in the spec. Not because specifiers caused the problem, but because they hold so much potential to shift it. Every material choice sends a message upstream: to mills, processors, and even forest managers. When Select is the only grade requested, the entire system adapts to deliver it — often at the expense of yield, efficiency, and the natural character of Australian timber. But the tide is turning. We’re seeing a quiet but powerful shift in how visual grading is understood. FWPA’s G02 Standard for Recycled Timber, for example, embraces the idea that natural variation is not a flaw but a feature. While it’s not a replacement for AS 2796 and applies specifically to recycled timber, it’s an important signal: there’s appetite for more realistic, inclusive frameworks that better reflect the diversity of our local hardwoods. By specifying differently — and daring to value the character others overlook — designers and builders have the power to reshape what’s considered “premium.” It’s not about compromise. It’s about rethinking the rules and making room for materials that reflect the real beauty of our forests. If you specify timber, you […]