Not a scrap wasted: A Huon pine slab story

Above: The author with his treasured birdseye Huon pine purchase.

Words and photos: Tom Burnard

A slab of birdseye Huon pine, purchased at Hobart’s Salamanca Market, set my mind to exploring endless possibilities for this stunning piece of timber. It seemed a shame to cut it up, but in doing so I would have much pleasure in creating various items of beauty in my workshop. Above all I wanted to retain the attractive feature of the natural rough bark edge to produce shapes with a live edge.

My wife and I settled on small ikebana stands as gifts, and a table platter, all retaining a natural edge. I cut each to shape on a bandsaw and rounded the edges with a router. The bigger platter just fitted the swing of my lathe to turn a very shallow dish. Next, the straight side of the slab minus a natural bark edge allowed me to create a large cheese board with an extended handle, keeping the tiniest bit of bark at the end of the handle.

First cut of the board retained natural edge for ikebana stands and a platter.

The next part of the plan was making the best use of the offcuts, of which there were three large pieces and an assortment of much smaller shapes. The larger ones were not big enough for tableware; however, they could be made into a composite platter.

The completed platter with waves of cedar.

Having joins in the middle of a platter does not conjure up a good look, but if done decoratively it can be very attractive. To do this my wife suggested two wavy stripes of a different timber curving across the platter. Dark waves of cedar would add character to the platter. I set about this by placing the cedar on top of the Huon pine and double cutting the waves with the bandsaw; this gave a perfect fit each time matching where the sawblade had travelled. All that remained was to glue and clamp them together and then turn the platter to shape on my lathe.

I was determined to exploit every scrap of this beautiful birdseye Huon pine, no matter how small, until all that remained was unusable litter. The remaining offcuts could not be fashioned into any more tableware, so the next solution was to make them a feature in a series of bowls using diminishing size offcuts in a series of bowls. Eventually I turned three bowls, all of them with segmented bands showcasing birdseye Huon pine in little glowing windows around the circumference.

Each bowl was constructed in the same manner, the only variable apart from bowl size was how I made use of the remaining scraps of birdseye Huon pine which were rapidly diminishing in size as I meticulously turned over each piece seeking the best fit.

Above: Bowl One with solid Huon pine staves and straight grain Huon top and bottom.

The central band of each bowl consisted of staves, angled according to the sector of the circle in each case, and cut on the bandsaw. The staves for Bowl One were solidly Huon pine. Now the remaining Huon pine scraps consisted of wafer-thin wedges and nuggets.

For Bowl Two the wafer-thin Huon pine scraps were used as veneers mounted on solid black bean staves, this gave the outer appearance of the bowl having solid Huon pine staves, but of course did not carry through to the bowl inner face.

For Bowl Three, keeping to the banded window design, I chose to convert the remaining Huon pine nugget scraps into port holes within black bean staves. 

Showing construction stages of the segmented bands for Bowl Three. Each stave was separated by a 4mm spacer of straight grain Huon pine, and formed into a circle ready to be glued up then screwed up tight with a large hose clamp.

Left to right: Truing Bowl Three on an adustable faceplate. Bowl Two has Huon pine veneers on black bean staves glued to a pre-sanded base. In the third photo, Bowl Two is nearing completion.

The segmented band for Bowl Three was mounted on my adjustable faceplate on the lathe, trued up each end, then the inner face trimmed up ready to receive a 4mm lateral band of straight grain Huon pine to match the vertical spacers thus creating the window effect. On Bowl One I used black bean, on Bowl Two alternate lateral bands of black bean and straight grain Huon pine.

Bowl Three completed and now in use.

Each bowl was well trimmed and sanded on the inner face ready to receive a pre-sanded base of the chosen timber so that very little trimming was needed afterwards. The rim in each case was of the same timber cut as a solid circle, glued on to the segmented band then the centre cut out leaving a rounded disk for further use.

Tom Burnard has been a woodworker in various forms all his life. He enjoys woodturning, intarsia, carving, cabinetmaking and his most recent love is making automata. His retirement years are ‘rich with woodworking’.