Yellow Boxwood from Model Expo

[brunnels]

Is Boxwood normally very yellow in color?  I bought some strips a couple weeks ago during the Model Expo anniversary sale, but it seems very yellow compared to what I normally see pictured.  Below is what I received.

[allanyed]

I have some old pieces of limbs from English boxwood that are great for carving but it is not nearly as yellow as in your photo.  Those piece are REALLY yellow.  If you cut a small piece, is it the same color all the way through?   Almost looks dyed😀 

[brunnels]

54 minutes ago, allanyed said:

I have some old pieces of limbs from English boxwood that are great for carving but it is not nearly as yellow as in your photo.  Those piece are REALLY yellow.  If you cut a small piece, is it the same color all the way through?   Almost looks dyed😀 

Yes, it appears to be that color the whole way through.  In moderation I think the yellow strips could be used in really cool ways on a kit, but I was planning on planking my Pegasus kit with it in the future and it might be a bit too much yellow for a whole ship to be planked in. 

[Mark P]

Good Afternoon Brunnells;

 

I have a large selection of English boxwood (I know it is because I cut the branches from the trees myself, or got them from gardeners who had cut them down, with the leaves still on them)

 

This has a good range of colour, and some of it is indeed very noticeably yellow. Some is very pale yellow, more of a cream colour, and there is a whole variety of inbetween shades. 

Some of it has no grain visible at all; some is prominently marked, with the end-grain looking like pine softwood; which of course it isn't, it is much too heavy, and must be the result of some growth rings being very close together, with others which are more dispersed.

 

The main characteristics are that it is heavy, hard, and extremely fine-grained. 

 

Below is a picture of a model made with boxwood planking, which is very yellow; presumably sealed with something, but the colour looks lovely.

 

All the best,

 

Mark P

 

[Chuck]

Thats not boxwood from ME....Its dyed yellow and a common lesser wood veneer that is very rough and stringy.   It is very common and cut into strips by ME.   Its a bit unethical to say the least but they fool a lot of people with those.   Just do a google search for yellow dyed veneer.  Its why they only carry 1mm thicknesses.    A sheet will cost you about $4 retail and you can cut about 25 or 30  strips from each sheet.  Maybe even more depending on the widths you want. You paid $8 for 12 strips.   That is a lot of profit and I doubt they paid retail...sorry but you got snookered.

 

It would be challenging to find a strip in your pile with a nice crisp flat edge that can be butt against another for a tight seam when planking.   They do sell yellow dyed veneer of better quality wood which would hold a nice edge and be suitable for planking...but your pile of strips is not that.  You paid $8 for about .80 worth of wood strips.

 

You would have been better served to buy the same number of Yellow Cedar strips  from Modelers Sawmill...  

 

$4 for 10 strips and beautiful yellow color that doesnt look artificial.   Plus so many other sizes. See below.   A nice hard edge as well.  About 1/2 what you paid...

 

OR better yet....buy actual Boxwood from Joe (south american) and its still cheaper than what you paid for that stuff.

 

 

Ship model with yellow cedar...

 

 

 

 

[brunnels]

13 minutes ago, Chuck said:

Thats not boxwood from ME....Its dyed yellow and a common lesser wood veneer that is very rough and stringy.   It is very common and cut into strips by ME.   Its a bit unethical to say the least but they fool a lot of people with those.   Just do a google search for yellow dyed veneer.  Its why they only carry 1mm thicknesses.    A sheet will cost you about $4 retail and you can cut about 25 or 30  strips from each sheet.  Maybe even more depending on the widths you want. You paid $8 for 12 strips.   That is a lot of profit and I doubt they paid retail...sorry but you got snookered.

 

It would be challenging to find a strip in your pile with a nice crisp flat edge that can be butt against another for a tight seam when planking.   They do sell yellow dyed veneer of better quality wood which would hold a nice edge and be suitable for planking...but your pile of strips is not that.  You paid $8 for about .80 worth of wood strips.

 

 

 

 

 

Guess I got swindled then, considering all the high praise people have for Model Shipways kits, I assumed their parent company would be straight shooters as well.  If there is any plus side I got it all for 48% off during their sale, but being ripped off at half price is still getting ripped off. I will test out their customer service to see if they will take it back and try to find strips elsewhere.  

[Chuck]

See my post above.....cheaper and premium quality.  You just cant beat the quality for the money.  If you are building Syren I recommend you get  3/64" thick strips. Although I dont remember what actual thickness I used when I designed that prototype.  It was such a long time ago.   That was my first kit design which I sold to Model Shipways.   I believe I recieved a $500 gift certificate for Model Expo products for that design.  I think they got a good deal on it, LOL.  So best to check out the materials list in your kit and just replace with whatever you prefer from Joe.  Cedar or Boxwood.

 

And fun fact...this is why I started my own company and it is named for this very first ship I ever designed a kit for.  

[Jaager]

22 minutes ago, Chuck said:

Just do a google search for yellow dyed veneer.  Its why they only carry 1mm thicknesses.    A sheet will cost you about $4 retail and you can cut about 25 or 30  strips from each sheet.

The situation is probably even worse.  The veneer has a high probability of being rotary cut.  Think of a blade producing a continuous sheet of wood that resembles paper towels coming off of a roll.   The wood came from a curved environment and will always "want" to go back to that cupped conformation.  Wetting, pressing, ironing will just be a futile fight against Mother Nature.

Even at a distance, that hideous yellow stuff looks like crap.  It will likely not be the joy to work that an appropriate species is.

It appears that the ZHL episode was not the aberration that I was hoping it was.  

[glbarlow]

9 hours ago, brunnels said:

Model Shipways kits,

Not all of us have high praise, I think they’re a junk company that proudly lists kits based on stolen IP from China. 
 

As Chuck notes The Modeler’s Saw Mill is an excellent US source for wood. I recommend you replace what you have with Alaskan Yellow Cedar (much less than boxwood and easier to work with, though boxwood is amazing). See my Cheerful or Winchelsea build log for more photos on how it looks planked on a hull. Then toss that junk away after sending MS a demand for refund (which you likely won’t get, but you’ll feel better) and post a nice Google Review. 

Edited March 28 by glbarlow

[Gregory]

1 hour ago, Mark P said:

 

Below is a picture of a model made with boxwood planking, which is very yellow; presumably sealed with something, but the colour looks lovely.

….

Just wait a couple of hundred years and all your boxwood will look that good…😁

[RossR]

1 hour ago, Chuck said:

I believe I recieved a $500 gift certificate for Model Expo products for that design.  I think they got a good deal on it, LOL.

Wow.  I would say they got a great deal. 

[rlwhitt]

2 hours ago, Chuck said:

See my post above.....cheaper and premium quality.  You just cant beat the quality for the money.  If you are building Syren I recommend you get  3/64" thick strips. Although I dont remember what actual thickness I used when I designed that prototype.  It was such a long time ago.   That was my first kit design which I sold to Model Shipways.   I believe I recieved a $500 gift certificate for Model Expo products for that design.  I think they got a good deal on it, LOL.  So best to check out the materials list in your kit and just replace with whatever you prefer from Joe.  Cedar or Boxwood.

 

And fun fact...this is why I started my own company and it is named for this very first ship I ever designed a kit for.  

 

$500 gift cert?  And here I was thinking you were just rolling in the royalties in perpetuity! 

 

Yeah, I kid, but seriously that's almost insulting. 

[Chuck]

I was young and working a real job at the time.   Live and learn.   And I have learned so much since back in those days.  No royalties for me.   But I got $500 worth of stiff Nylon rigging rope and square rigging blocks for a few years....LOL

 

Chuck

[chris watton]

11 minutes ago, Chuck said:

I was young and working a real job at the time.   Live and learn.   And I have learned so much since back in those days.  No royalties for me.   But I got $500 worth of stiff Nylon rigging rope and square rigging blocks for a few years....LOL

 

Chuck

If only we knew then what we know now....

[Jaager]

8 minutes ago, chris watton said:

If only we knew then what we know now....

It is also possible that knowledge and lessons learned give you the power and determination to persevere , when not having that chip would have lead to the easy path.

If you did it twice, that would be troubling.   At least you are not a song writer who signed over the rights to a song whose royalties could have supported you for the rest of your life.

[Gregory]

4 hours ago, chris watton said:

If only we knew then what we know now....

I like the version from a Bob Seeger song:  "  I wish I didn't know now, what I didn't know then. " 😁

Edited March 27 by Gregory

[Kevin]

1 hour ago, chris watton said:

If only we knew then what we know now....

i have learnt loads, just don't remember any of it

[David Lester]

This solves a mystery for me. A few years ago I bought some "boxwood" strips from Model Expo and received this same rough yellow stuff. I was at a loss to understand why everyone raved about boxwood so much. I could see no improvement over the basswood strips I was intending to replace. Now that I understand I want to try some of the real thing.

David 

[mtaylor]

I tend to believe the term "boxwood" is very generic and used for many woods that are not even close to the stuff we want.  I remember seeing a wooden box for soda bottles and being told it was boxwood because that's the wood for boxes.  It was a plywood box for crying out loud.  

[Jim Lad]

Mark, there's an Ozzie native tree that's known as 'boxwood', because (you guessed it) it was commonly used for making boxes!

 

John

[allanyed]

11 hours ago, David Lester said:

I want to try some of the real thing.

English and European boxwoods (I think both are called buxus sempervirens) are difficult to find and very expensive stuff if you do find some.  Castello boxwood (Calycophyllum multiflorum) is great to work with but it is becoming harder to find and prices are up. One source (and I would confirm it is buxus sempervirens) is https://exoticwood.biz/ 

Allan

[Srodbro]

Any words of wisdom regarding the veracity of other woods they sell, like Cherry or walnut?  

[Gregory]

I have bought their cherry and walnut sheets, which were of reasonable quality.

I think you are better off going with Modelers Sawmill or Ocooch Hardwoods.

[MichaelZ]

I also received recently the same yellow planks from ModelExpo when ordering boxwood for decks. I reached out to them with my concern about the color and they very promptly exchanged the originals for basswood which reflected the tone I was after. I appreciated their customer service and look forward to working with them again.  

[brunnels]

Quick update.  I sent an RMA Request to ModelExpo requesting a refund and they approved it. I am going to ship the product back to them and buy some wood from one of the other recommended suppliers.  I appreciate everyone's help and input.

[glbarlow]

11 hours ago, MichaelZ said:

exchanged the originals for basswood

Not sure basswood for boxwood is a fair exchange, glad it works for you. 

[glbarlow]

3 hours ago, brunnels said:

requesting a refund and they approved it

For the whole model or just the wood?

[brunnels]

12 hours ago, glbarlow said:

For the whole model or just the wood?

Just the wood.

[kgstakes]

Glad I clicked on this topic.  Learning a lot about the woods you all use.  I've only built with basswood (railroad structures & miniature furniture). Used cherry once for a miniature table.

 

I'm building the Mississippi River boat and the different species in the kit but didn't really realize that certain woods are better for certain parts of a ship.

 

Very interesting topic, thanks everyone, I'll pay more attention to the woods used from now on.

 

And the best part is I have another supplier for wood !!

Edited March 29 by kgstakes

[Gregory]

Bass is really a pretty good choice if you are painting..