Thread: Holtey in Hairy Oak

Luke

Thanks for posting that. In my limited experience of his products I have never seen him use Australian timbers. He sure knows how to pick a good one. Not only that, he appears to have orientated the wood so the narrow ellipses feature on all sides. That is not easy to do. Normally on a square section the narrow ellipse will occur on two sides and a much larger "shadow" on the other two faces. As I write, I wonder if the infill is two pieces glued together to achieve this effect. However, in the pix I could not see any evidence of that, but there again the man is clever.

Sorry, this pic is not sharp, but demonstrates the two different shapes courtesy of the medullary rays.

Hairy Oak. Bull Oak comparison 012.jpg

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Luke

Thanks for posting that. In my limited experience of his products I have never seen him use Australian timbers. He sure knows how to pick a good one. Not only that, he appears to have orientated the wood so the narrow ellipses feature on all sides. That is not easy to do. Normally on a square section the narrow ellipse will occur on two sides and a much larger "shadow" on the other two faces. As I write, I wonder if the infill is two pieces glued together to achieve this effect. However, in the pix I could not see any evidence of that, but there again the man is clever.

Paul,

In my experience with furniture the simplest way to achieve this is to orient your block so that the growth rings cross it dead diagonally at 45 degrees. This gives you the most consistent grain patterning on all four faces. In my opinion it's an absolute must for any kind of leg with square sides. It wastes a lot of wood, of course, but the ends typically justify the means.

Not that I'm making any table legs in Hairy Oak, unfortunately...

Luke

Hey Luke - long time no speak - glad to know you're still with us...

Yep, well-spotted, the blunt-ended rays & 'spider web' pattern between the rays is pretty well diagnostic of A. inophloia. P'raps there's another species somewhere in the world that looks like that, but somehow, I doubt it...

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

......he appears to have orientated the wood so the narrow ellipses feature on all sides. That is not easy to do. Normally on a square section the narrow ellipse will occur on two sides and a much larger "shadow" on the other two faces. ......l

I'd suggest it's just the way it's oriented, Paul. I think it's from a small diameter log or branch, so the rays form a tight circle, rather than the parallel lines in your sample from a good-sized log. Also, the rays aren't so deep radially on branches or small diameter logs. If you look at the pic showing the right side of the wedge, you can see the rays are cut in a more radial section..

I agree it's a good choice of wood, apart from being spectacular, hairy oak is the nicest of the casuarinas to work with that I've tried.

I always admire the perfection of Holtey's file work - those chamfers are impeccable. Making such constant-width chamfers on circular edges is no mean feat - damhik!

Cheers,