Wood Wood Everywhere
I’ve said before that being a woodworker makes you observant. We tend to stare at things to try and figure out how they were put together. We notice trees. Sure they are beautiful, but woodworkers tend to admire the long, straight bole. It’s not that we want to cut down everything in sight, far from it. But I think the woodworker appreciates the beauty of a tree and wants to extend it’s life when we make something from it’s wood.
Today my worlds collided. There I am waiting for my carryout sushi to be ready and I happened to notice the beautiful millwork in the restaurant. A lot of it was plywood, but really pretty curly Cherry rotary cut plywood. The solid wood rails, stiles, pediment mouldings, and caps were all curly Cherry too. Sushi and warm curly Cherry what more could you ask for?
So I’m driving back to the office with my lunch in hand and listening to a great science fiction book, “Off Armageddon Reef
” by David Weber and wood comes up again. You see the story takes place in the distant future when the human race has fled to a far flung galaxy from an avenging alien race. To hide they ditch all technology and rebuild civilization from the ground up. Essentially it is a novel that takes place around the 1500s. So as I’m driving back to my office at the lumber yard, the story turns to a point about building a new Navy and the woods used. This new planet has a species very much like Teak on Earth and the author spends the better part of the chapter (what amounted to 10 minutes of audio) discussing the merits of this Teak like species for boat building and what it could mean to naval warfare and the durability of their ships. I’m digging the technical aspects of the wood as well as the woodworking techniques discussed as it relates to ship building.
As the chapter wraps up, I pull into the lumber yard and drive right by the Teak shed full of several million board feet of amazingly beautiful Teak.
I think the universe is trying to tell me something: woodworking is awesome!
…or maybe I need to get a life.
