Copying Jimothy's post from over 30 days ago. Also seems like WA is included this time.
Some of the handy 1800 x 405 x 18mm panels are back on sale at $29 at Bunnings, with pine panels at $19.
Stock levels:
I also saw Okoume at $29 in store but can't find the SKU.
Is any of these good enough to use in a marine environment? Ie a step on a boat?
Probably not, based on GC67's comment from the other deal:
Its made of small pieces of wood joined together - I can't see it lasting outdoors at all.
I wouldn’t
lol absolutely not
You remind me of a customer at Bunnings who asked me (as a teenage employee) if the polymer rope selling for 50c/metre would be strong enough for rock climbing.
Pretty sure the static loading on any rope is sufficient to hold up a person. So itll do it… once.
It states it's for indoor use.
Sure, if you apply several coats of epoxy over all surfaces and inside bolt holes.
I have to disagree with the previous commenters. The teak panels should be great for this. 'A bond' glue is pretty water resistant, and longevity will depend more on what sort of finish you put on it. A good quality marine varnish would probably see it lasting just fine.
it's not teak, it's acacia (edit: and there are over 1000 acacias, so figuring out its durability is a little tricky) with "golden teak" stain on it.
Have used two of these panels for cheap sturdy computer tables before. Basically used them to bypass IKEA's crappy particleboard tabletops.
Just buy the frame from IKEA, build the frame, lay it down flat on the wood, mark your screw holes, pre-drill the holes and join up the table with the frame.
40cm is a terrible depth for a desk though?
These panels come in 600mm and 900mm deep options in different timber types.
Ultimately, I think I'll end up with a 900 deep desk.
I did my kids computer desk with one a few weeks back.
He has a apple 27inch i found on a verge and it sits on top fine with the keyboard in front of it. Bigger would be better but it works.
Wall mounting the screen may make it ok if you're limited by space.
It depends. If you're using your chair’s armrests for support and have a clamp-on monitor stand, placing the keyboard and mouse near the edge could work — especially for a smaller screen (around 19 to 24 inches).
I wall mounted mine. Space was tight. Works fine for a single mounted 24 inch monitor.
Ikea do also sell more solid timber and MDF benchtops, for kitchens etc. They are expensive, but can sometimes be found cheap in the "as is".
Reckon these could be used as kitchen bench tops? Thinking 2 thick and 1.5 wide.
2 thick is $80m^2 for 36mm vs $92m^2 for 33mm for specrite (Which would be 90mm wide so would lose a bunch on the offcuts) or $272m^2 for kaboodle (36mm)
Anyone got any other cheap ideas for kitchen bench tops?
Dunno why anyone would neg you but you’ll probably want to at least put some kind of (food safe) sealer on these for kitchen table use.
Desk use absolutely fine though (I have two desks with these tops now, but in the bigger size)
I have 2 of these (the deeper ones) as desks - I wouldn’t recommend them for use in a wet area like a kitchen. I’ve noticed a few of the joins have shifted up/down a bit - as in you can catch the join with your fingernail. I imagine water would really make these swell.
When I did my kitchen, IKEA was far cheaper and much better quality than Kaboodle
The kaboodle is 100% wood though and ikea is particle with veneer
Particleboard is a more stable material in regards to heat expansion and shrinking, but I think the biggest difference would be the quality of glue used. I took another look at a similar wood panel from Bunnings that I'll link below - reviews tend to mirror my experience where the glue isn't super stable.
https://www.bunnings.com.au/specrite-1200-x-600-x-18mm-finge…
Looked into this and experimented a bit. Ended up going with Ikea (before this was on sale, it would be way cheaper than ikea at these prices). At these prices I'm tempted to stock up on a few for future projects lol
You really want to seal these - plenty of benchtop poly at minimum. On all sides
Was trying to avoid the particle board in the ikea tops.
Ikea seems to come to $250m^2 so almost 3x these guys so if I could make them work it would be 1/3rd the cost and 100% wood not veneer with particle board.
Some things to consider are the cost of the poly (it's a lot to cover all sides with 3/4 coats) and the ease of installation/joinery. We just did a simple butt joint on the ikea tops by taking off some edging on the join.
As far as I can tell, these panel will have a little bevel if you just butt them together in the same way.
But yeh at this price difference…
Prob good to mention here now (as per feedback from the last post) apparently YMMV with getting workshop on site to help cut these because apparently they are not supposed to.
I had no problem getting them to cut these panels. Take the plastic off first.
Same no issues
What are the use cases for these panels?
whatever you want. I used them for a DIY study desk.
i got one before and made a desk for my child. i had to sand it down though, not very smooth. worked my way through coarse up to very fine sand paper. now its excellent. :)
Mrs bought a few @ $5ea a couple of years ago. Made a nice coffee nook shelf and laundry shelf from 2 of them, and used another to make some nice chopping boards and board for under air fryer.
A Montessori bookshelf costs $450 or two of these panels (but 2400mm long) cut in half and one length cut in half again (cuts done in store) and you have three 1200x400mm shelves and two 600x400mm uprights screwed together for $60.
its true, add 'Montessori' or 'wedding' to anything is basically a license to mark it up minimum 420%.
when getting these check that they are not warped or bowing in any way. the 2.4m ones are notorious for this..
Wondering if you could use this for outdoor wall planters with some kind of UV repellant coating.
You would want to varnish the hell out of it, and keep it relatively out of the elements. Reckon it would start to warp after a couple of seasons.
Thanks for your reply. Might look at other options for it.
Can confirm it will warp at the first rain. Accidently left a couple scraps outside and they were like a skateboard ramp the next day after a light rain.
Would bunnings cut this to size? Thinking to use this on top of my ikea Kallax as a console table for the hallway.
Ymmv, I had no issues but others have been refused
One cut is free, but try to go when they're less busy.
Recently did a build with the Acacia panel variant of these. They will warp a lot in the heat if left outside. There are ways of fixing them if they warp but save yourself the hassle and buy timber from a proper timber provider if you plan on building something which you want to be good quality.
Additionally, these come stained with finish on them which if you plan on sanding to remove can reveal much of the imperfections in the wood quality (ring shake) which may require putty to fix.
Bunning does cut this on request but the cuts wont be perfect if you plan on doing any joinery.
(ring shake)
That sounds horrific !
Man….. Coffs Harbour Bunnings never have these in stock. Dunno why, but they seem to have lower stock than any other Bunnings on a lot of panel types.
The bunnings system only orders more stock when it hits 0. If there's none on the floor, and the system says 3, someone has to manually order them.
I use the 33mm acacia one as a desk top, sanded it down and stained it.
Looks amazing and cost about the same as an IKEA desk top but actual wood.
I've built a desk and a Montessorri style kids bookshelf (see my post above for details) with these panels. Three things to note:
1) The panel quality varies alot through the stack - i pulled out every one in the stack to find the best that didnt have putty filling knots and holes; that had the most even distribution of colour and grain.
2) The quality and consistency of the longer, thicker, better quality wood is much better than the shorter, thinner, cheaper wood panels they sell. Considering that cutting in store is pretty much free, you are much better off buying a more expensive panel and cutting it to length.
3) Grain direction for the laminates vary, there are parts that have end grain showing (at a diagonal). Affects the finished look, absorption of finishes, and ease of sanding.
The desk was an easy build. Buy panel - 1/4 or 1/8 round router along the edges - sand all surfaces - finish surface (beeswax) - screw on premade metal legs (bunnings and ikea sell).
where can i find the frames in the photos of the panels?
Went in looking for these, walked out with two beautiful karri panels at 2200x610x26 for $80 each :(
At the top of the pile they had the cheap looking panels with short laminated offcuts, but I dug through to the bottom and the panels were all full length pieces, still more digging to find two that colour matched correctly
Must be a new line because they don't show up on their website and I've never seen them in store before, but great value for a hardwood panel with full lengths if you can find them
Mate do you have a photo of this or can quote the details?
Karri is a beautiful timber… I used it in my old house to do some bookshelves but Specrite haven't supplied it for several years now.
Sure man, I was actually stoked when I found them because they weren't in there about 2 weeks ago when I went looking for panels and I didn't want the short pieces for the planned tabletop.
I reckon the pile was about 15 or so high, plus a random one off to the side which had full length pieces which got me digging for more. I think I moved about 6 or 7 from the top that all had the short pieces, then the bottom half full length 90mm pieces, both styles had the same barcode on them though. $81.75 each
Scanned with powerpass app, I/N is 0637113. Your profile says WA so might be out of luck for now, but I'm thinking maybe a new line since I've never seen them before now
Wow great deal - i'm looking for basically this so i can split it into 2200x300~x26. 18mm seems too thin for shelves for me, since i'm going to rebate 5mm for the bracket.
I can see some in gladesville, but that's on the other side of Sydney for me… will look into this on Anzac weekend, maybe get a project done, if they can rip it for me.
That's really interesting because it's exactly the same as the old line they used to have (in an assortment of sizes). They've even used the same cover flyer:
https://res2.grays.com/handlers/imagehandler.ashx?t=sh&id=41…
As you may know the old growth commercial logging was banned in WA at the start of 2024. So i'm guessing these lines probably come from South African plantations (it's actually designated an invasive species there) and are then shipped to Vietnam for manufacturing.
Fingers crossed its on sale for the next few weeks.