Was contacted today by an individual who found my Beraht website and saw I
do some live edge work. He is in north Fort Worth and has 4 pallets of teak slabs that are reported to be FSC certified, 1.5" x 48" x 10-12’ long. Came from teak plantation in Costa Rica.
They are glue up slabs with live edge for the outer strips. Kiln dried to 8%. Am attaching photos I was sent.
Asking price is $15/bdft.
Now you know what I know. Message me if you want the guy’s contact info to pursue.
First reaction: holy smokes that’s the biggest teak tree I’ve ever heard of- that’s amazing, and that price is a steal.
Second reaction: wait are those planks glued up to look like a single live edge slab!?
Whew $900/sheet, gotta live large!
From the photos it looks like a glue up to me. I see a lot of different grain patterns for it to be a single slab.
Agreed. What a weird product.
And Bert said that the guy said that it’s a glue-up with a glued-on live-edge strip.
Does DMS have a “good reader” award?If so, nominating Beth!
Not really, given that 4/4 teak rough lumber is listed at Plywood Company of Fort Worth for $45/bdft.
http://www.plywoodcompany.com/MainSite/Store1/StoreProducts/ProductList/489
These would have started out as rough boards thicker than 6/4 to end up with what appear to be planed panels at 6/4. These would be good for a facility that is installing an outdoor bar or counter or an indoor item drawing on a rustic or wood based decor. Manufactured live edge is not unheard of, but is generally used when extra wide and stable are major requirements. Real slabs move with humidity in troubling ways. Edge glued panels move a lot less as long as the strips are not much wider than 4".
All that said, if you needed a “butcher block” slab 10+ feet long, you would be very hard pressed to beat this price even in a less exotic material such as white oak. Cut the “edge” off if it doesn’t fit the installation.
Back to the price of slabs … the very first live edge dining table I did was made from a single vertical slab cut from a huge northern walnut tree. The finished table is shown in the picture. It is 56-1/4" at the widest point, 32-1/2" at the narrowest point and 97" long. The raw slab was 3" thick and cost me $3000.
Teak at $15/bf with a certificate is an absolute steal. I wish I had a purpose for it. Pain in the butt to work with though.
Like so good I wonder if it’s real.
Understand that concern, but have no knowledge about it. Supposedly the guy’s uncle owns the teak plantation which might explain, but the due diligence is something to address.
When I worked at Rockler I was asked to make a customer a teak shower shelf. It was a very simple design she wanted and we used the teak Rockler sold. (I don’t see any on their website these days)
It took about a day worth of woodworking off and on to make it and a little extra time for the glue up, but it turned out pretty nice. The customer was quite pleased.
There were numerous issues with the project. The glue up was problematic due to the nature of the teak’s natural oils. I used some acetone to wipe the teak before using epoxy to glue it up. Since the project involved multiple slats I used some dowel pins to ensure they were properly placed. I have some dowel making tools from Veritas which I used to create the teak dowels. This was fun, too.
Overall, though the project was very successful and when installed in her shower it looked very nice.
Teak is a very unique wood to work with. It’s price has almost gotten cost prohibitive though so alternative solutions are often looked for such as Eucalyptus.
This deal does seem too good to be true.
The deal does seem great for Teak. More of that is spendy for me since I do not have a need for such large sheets.
Do remember it was challenging to work with. I was helping my grandfather make some replacement cabin doors for his sailboat. In the early eighties I think it was >$200 for a 3.5’ x 3.5’ piece. Was about double if we wanted a 4’ x 4’ piece.
I wonder if this is the guy. He’s saying $20 on Facebook Marketplace. If he’s really doing $15, that’s very tempting. 
Probably the same. He contacted me based on my running a woodworking business and doing slab work. The $15 was given as the wholesale price. Not unexpected he would ask more for non-business buyers. I assumed he would sell wholesale to members of a non-profit. It was an assumption, so buyer beware.
OK, know more about these now having laid eyes on the slabs. The teak plantation primarily produces decking lumber. The cut-offs are being used in these slabs as an experiment. Material is both early and late growth parts of the tree. I gather these might be the initial test batch. Slabs are made up of strips 2.5-4" wide. The strips were edge glued and then planed on both sides. Must be a heck of a planer for these wide slabs. All good so far.
Several of the strips do have the pith in them so a good bit of this is center of tree material with related cautions. Unfortunately, they didn’t routinely alternate the strips so that the grain orientation would minimize cupping of the planks. While most are still pretty flat, a few are cupped quite significantly. If you could come up with a crafty need for strips, I suspect you could get a good deal on the wayward slabs and harvest the strips for smaller projects.
I have two of the full slabs to experiment with. Will be making indoor items since I am not sure I trust the glue for exterior exposure. A few slabs were dropped during import handling and breakage along the glue line was observed. I recommended they pass on to the plantation owner that alternating strips and use of splines would be worthwhile upgrades.
If you wanted to go to the effort of cutting the planks into strips, rotating and then gluing up for edge grain cutting boards or butcher block tops, the price is way better than raw teak lumber.
Anyway … some good, some issues. The material is real, the plantation is real, it is owned by a family member, and the hope is to develop the process in order to develop a market for otherwise wasted teak.
And, yes … they are heavy!
