sutton046

Another successful program completed. Recently I'd had the privilege of facilitating another woodworking program at the Stirling Men's Shed, bringing together grandparents or parents and their grand kids or kids. The last one of these was conducted in 2013, where we made tables. This time we set out primarily to make chairs and stools. The nice change this time was this program also being open to women. The Stirling Men's Shed facilities are made available every second Saturday afternoon to the women's recreational woodworking group, "Women Working with Wood".    This opened up the possibility for the program to be both inter-generational and inter-gender! Unfortunately, I did not get many photos along the way - nor did I get pics of every pair or their completed projects, sadly. However, the few I did capture are shown amid the text below. Dermot and his Grandad Bert together made a stool to match some others they had at home. The Process. We started looki...

While picking up some nice WA Blackbutt timber recently from Derek Doak The Timber Bloke , I came away with a bonus - a big chunk of Camphor Laurel. Thanks, Derek! The two crotch sections about to be cut from the log. The crotch from the end of the log Derek would be able to use. The next crotch in was less useful to him to recover timber, as it was a bit complicated being a four way fork. I reckoned it would be worth seeing what I could recover from this big crotch, even if it was only spoon material! Big and VERY heavy - loaded by the forklift. Normally, for green woodworking, we want nice straight grained log sections. These are more likely to split evenly. This big piece of Camphor Laurel was anything but straight! It was going to be a gamble, and a bit of an adventure... I had to use levers to manoeuvre the stump off the back of the ute. THUMP!  Once off the back of the ute, the big chunk was sitting in my driveway. Totally unmovable, it was time to make it much smaller. ...

During my Green Woodworking adventures, I have been exploring woods suitable for use which are readily available here in Perth, Western Australia. While there is a long tradition of green wood crafts in Europe and North America going back over centuries, this is not the case here in Australia. Consequently there are very little green wood crafts being done here - except for a few crazies like me. I am eager to share the wonders of green woodworking with other West Australians, but we need some friendly timbers to work with. That knocks out most of the gnarly eucalypts which predominate our forests and bushlands! However, parks, gardens and back yards offer a whole world of exotic tree species to chose from, so I am on the hunt for timber which is readily available, which splits easily, and is not too hard and unfriendly. A prolific backyard exotic tree in the older parts of Perth is the Cape Lilac. This tree is also known in other parts of the world variously as Whit...

The kitchen I have been making by stages is completed structurally. It's time to make the drawers, before the doors and drawer fronts are made and hung. These doors and drawer fronts will be made with WA Blackbutt (Eucalyptus patens), as per the framing and end panels. One section of the big kitchen ready for appliances, end panels, drawers and drawer fronts and doors. My customer has a huge pile of New Zealand grown pine - either Pinus radiate or Pinus pinasta - which she picked up from a local furniture manufacturer who was closing down. Sadly, yet another furniture maker put out of business by the West Australian public choosing to buy cheap Chinese imports rather than supporting their local industry.  But that's another story... Somehow, the Kiwi's can grow much nicer pine than we can grow in Australia, especially Western Australia where we grow those same two species. I suspect it's a climate thing as well as a plantation management issue. Anyway, this awesomely...