Timber
Working with wood is a great privilege for us and using it every day has enabled us to develop a deep understanding of all its unique qualities. This affinity with wood and an appreciation of the different characteristics particularly in native species, gives us the opportunity to create striking contrasts in textures and colours within the same piece of furniture.
On a number of occasions we have inspected a client's tree, felled it, converted it, dried it, and made them a piece of furniture from the timber it yielded. This is a hugely fulfilling exercise giving us and the client a great deal of satisfaction. This process requires a great deal of patience though as even thin boards if dried traditionally can take a minimum of one year before finishing in the kiln. It is of course possible to dry timber far quicker than this in the kiln from green but it is significantly more expensive.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to purchase from timber dealers the more exiting forms of native species such as burrs, ripples, roots, and curls etc. Consequently a very important aspect of our work and a great deal of our time is spent searching for inspirational timber. We have some planks in the workshop that are of such rare and outstanding beauty that the design of whatever we make from them has to be inspired by the boards themselves. It is essential to process the tree in the correct way not just to prevent drying defects and ultimately the stability of finished components but perhaps more importantly we must convert the tree in a way that is going to yield the most beautiful grain the tree has to offer. There is no substitute for experience in this as only by very careful consideration of the visible exterior can we make an assessment of what is likely to be revealed hidden inside. This can be disappointing at times as we tend to have very high expectations of what's hidden, on the other hand when we expose something uniquely extraordinary it crates a fundamental compulsion to create something from it which I believe satisfies an instinctive need amongst people who work with wood.
Timber's greatest quality is that with careful management it is the only natural resource we need never run out of, and it can supply us not just with structural materials but also with sustainable energy.