Thread: Black Wattle - Red Oak box

Not really happy about the combination of timbers after seeing the finish.

Nice box all the same though.

I'm not familiar with Red Oak, and I'm no timber expert, but for me that looks like Silky Oak.

Originally Posted by Feckit

I'm not familiar with Red Oak, and I'm no timber expert, but for me that looks like Silky Oak.

Well Feckit, you are not far off the mark. It is quite like NSO to work with, and has the wide open grain that is difficult to fill, but it has the characteristic of cells collapsing while it dries, and with a 100 x 100 post you end up with each side concave so you might get an 80 x 80 post.

Botanical Name

Carnarvonia araliifolia F.Muell. var. araliifolia
Mueller, F.J.H. von (1868) Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae 6: 81. Type: In silvis montium circum sinum Rockinghams Bay. J. Dallachy..
Common name

Oak, Caledonian; Oak, Red; Caledonian Oak; Caledonian Silky Oak; Red Oak; Oak, Caledonian Silky; Red Silky Oak; Oak, Red Silky

Hey Dengy,
Very nice looking box there, very impressive indeed, your sister will be stoked with that I reckon. For your pearl inlay did you use one of those template followers that you put on the bottom of your plunge router. ( I sold my triton plunge router recently).

Also I reckon the blokes down at your local pub wouldnt be too happy having a large rectangle piece of their pool table cloth cut off their pool table,.

Paul

Another really lovely box, Joe I like the clean lines and the understated lid lift. I also agree that the top looks particularly good with the Mother of Pearl disc. I have no doubt your sister will be extremely proud of this.

Choice of timbers is always the hard part isn’t it? Lately I’ve been leaning towards complementary colour tones - for example with a piece of Red Oak like this for a top I might think of a plain timber such as jarrah for the main box. My thinking being that the jarrah would act as a frame to show off the top rather than compete for attention. I’m also rather in love with ‘campaign’ style handles at the moment, the sort that were used on officers’ furniture when they donned their pith helmets and headed out to the tropics - for example https://www.horton-brasses.com/campaign-hardware.asp

Great to see you back here, Joe, after the appalling weather conditions up your way earlier in the year!

Keep well,

Brian

Originally Posted by pauls321

also i reckon the blokes down at your local pub wouldnt be too happy having a large rectangle piece of their pool table cloth cut off their pool table,.

Paul

Love it!

Nice result there, Dengy. I've never used black wattle, but it looks pretty good. The mother of pearl sets off what would otherwise be a plain lid. Haven't seen the red oak before but it looks like an interesting timber.

Originally Posted by Pauls321

Hey Dengy,
For your pearl inlay did you use one of those template followers that you put on the bottom of your plunge router.

Also I reckon the blokes down at your local pub wouldnt be too happy having a large rectangle piece of their pool table cloth cut off their pool table,.

Paul

hi Paul, thanks for your comments. I actually bought a 40mm diameter Forster drill bit that flattens the bottom of the hole, does the job nicely, but is difficult to get the depth exactly right so I drill a bit deeper and use epoxy to fill the gap under the MoP disc.
And I don’t muck about Paul, I take the whole pool table covering. You might have seen the beer stains in one of the photos

Hey Dengy, great reply.

So obviously you buy a MOP disc with a 40mm diameter, very nice. Talking about pool tables, I used to have a 1920 Heiron & Smith billiard table. My Dad bought it second hand when I was 5 (about 1954). I got it from Dad just before he died. I knew it was 1920 as when I used to work in Sydney near Wynyard I used to go to a shop that Eddie Charlton owned that sold billiard tables and accessories. This would be about 1973.
Eddie used to be always practising down the back. A very elderly chap used to work on the counter and he got me to write down the exact writing on the brass plate so he knew the precise year from that, plus the shape of the legs. At the time I was getting a few quotes on having it fully re cushioned, re clothed, re pocketed etc. But alas I sold the table when we moved up here 20 years ago, just was too large for this house.

Paul

Very nice indeed. I like the look of the proud lid insert. I'm looking at doing one on a box i'm working on at the moment.

I like the look of the proud lid insert.

Hi Fumbler, it is not proud. The insert sits dead level with the top of the lid, i.e., it is inlaid

Just stunning!!

Thanks Angela, glad you like it.