Odyssey Timberworks

"Heavy is good. Heavy is reliable."

Memento Coffee Table made with reclaimed Spotted Gum, with Boonaree inlay.

It's heavy, it's dense, it's hard, and it's variance in colours make it really challenging to get consistent material. What isn't suitable for flooring though, makes for excellent furniture. It's probably also suitable as an earthquake shelter in a pinch. (Please don't test that claim.)

With birds-eye, quilting, select-grade crown and even quarter/rift-sawn curl, this table is absolutely riddled with character; character amplified with a contrasting inlay from the centre of this magnificent continent. The best part is that it's available for sale. Send a message for more details.

Spotted Gum from
Finished with Satin Hard Wax Oil
Boonaree from

Look with your hands.

Just like working with clay, woodworking is a tactile activity - you're working with raw materials that are prone to failure if they're not treated and prepared properly. These faults can be structural, protective, material, but they can also be aesthetic, and nothing undermines beautiful work and reveals imperfections as much as a poor finish. The irony with working with raw materials like timber is that sometimes you can't see the fault until it's finished - you need to feel the material you're working with to "predict" how a surface will look when a finish is applied. Minor unevenness in the surface can't be seen; small blemishes might be able to hide in clear light. Feel the material you're working, don't just trust your eyes.

Touch is an often-neglected sense, and there is a lot of information you can't get from any other sensory input. For example, there are few things in life that feel as nice as fresh, well-sanded end-grain.

Back to Basics.

Introducing the Tactus Tray. Head over to IG to see the full post or check the website for more information!

Back to basics. . Introducing the Tactus Tray. EVERYONE makes/has made/is making serving trays and cutting boards. They're a great beginner project that will teach you a lot of fundamental skills; interpreting grain direction, setting and using a hand plane, and applying a basic finish to name a few. They're a great intermediate project too because they're a blank canvas. Once you have a basic understanding of tool use, you can start customizing them in your own way. . These articles were made mostly of Jarrah and Blackwood offcuts from furniture projects, and despite a minimalist design they are as versatile in use as they are packed with details. These include breadboard ends with contrasting colour dowel, book-matched boards, slim-tapered and ergonomic handle ends, low-profile neoprene feet, finished in 100% food-safe oil, and buffed with all-natural-ingredient food-safe wax. . Breadboard ends are a traditional joinery method used to help maintain flatness in wide timber surfaces such as tabletops and counters. It is essentially a tongue-and-groove joint, found most commonly in floorboards, with multiple dowels locking the end cap in. This joint provides multiple functions in these trays; the tongue-and-groove joint will ensure the timber itself will stay flat permanently despite grain orientation, will allow a long-grain to long-grain adhesion between perpendicular boards, seals the endgrain of the boards that will receive the most exposure to moisture and temperature changes, allows for the natural expansion and contraction of the timber, and allows you to apply extra length to the tray itself, facilitating the use of off-cuts that may otherwise end up in the bin or the fire pit. Simple joinery, big results. The wider the surface though, the more work is required to facilitate movement of the timber. . You can chop ingredients on it, watch videos on your tablet in bed on it, rest your wine glass on it (with a coaster), or take it on a picnic and cut the cheese on it - almost anything. And when you're done, you can also display it, allowing the natural beauty of the timber itself and the character you add to it by it's use to invigorate the space around it.

Not all timber is created equally.

I recently completed a few side tables out of various timbers and shared a few things I noticed in the differences. Check each one out individually on Instagram in the link below!

Each set is also available for purchase, feel free to get in touch for more information.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cta8lpvO7Px/

The slower you go, the quicker you'll get there.

Cleaning up the chamfers on some Hydrowood Celery Top Pine.

The slower you go, the quicker you'll get there. . Cleaning up the chamfers on some @hydrowood Celery Top Pine. . . . . #woodworking #wood #odyssey #handmade #woodworker #woodwork #timber #lumber #design #interiordesign #furniture #wooddesign #carpentry #australianmade #details #carpenter #handcrafted #maker #furnituredesign #interior #custom #woodworkersofinstagram #woodworkingcommunity #woodworkers

https://www.instagram.com/p/CsBb_M8Lace/

Check out what the guys in the Melbourne Polytechnic furniture making short course have been up to! Never touched a plane before, but you wouldn't know looking at those shavings!

Short course guys making an absolute mess! 😁👌🔨 . Week 2 of the 10 week @melbpoly furniture short course means learning how to use a hand plane, and these guys are absolutely crushing it 😮 . . . . #woodworking #wood #handmade #woodworker #woodwork #timber #lumber #design #interiordesign #furniture #wooddesign #carpentry #australianmade #carpenter #handcrafted #maker #furnituredesign #woodworkersofinstagram #tools #woodworkingcommunity #woodworkers #tafe #shortcourse #woodworkschool

Gluing in the brass pins to the Anima unit.

Odyssey Timberworks on Instagram: "#pistonfit part deux. I couldn't not put up a vid. . . . . #woodworking #wood #odyssey #handmade #woodworker #woodwork #timber #lumber #design #furniture #wooddesign #carpentry #australianmade #walnut #as 39 likes, 2 comments - Odyssey Timberworks (.timberworks) on Instagram: " part deux. I couldn't not put up a vid. . . . .       ..."

The Anima shelving unit is up online. Head over to the Instagram page or the website to check it out.

https://www.odysseytimberworks.com.au/shelving

https://www.instagram.com/p/CrC8EF6Per6/

Anima shelving unit, made from American Black Walnut and Ash, with adjustable brass shelf pins and brass inserts. . Shelving tends to be closed-in, obviously for good reasons. Sometimes it's nice however to display treasured items without losing sight of them to the furniture itself, and to keep them exposed to a bit more light. The idea behind this article was to keep it open, but not to sacrifice function for form. That requires a bit of joinery, and some soft metal. . There's a lot of book-matching solid timber in this piece. The back panel and adjustable shelves were all built this way. It's a tricky thing to do, as the more material you process from the matched faces, the more distorted the pattern becomes. You're also releasing any tension still in the board that you're ripping, and you can easily end up with Twisties for material (Cheese is the superior Twisty flavour). When you get it right though, it's worth the effort. . Walnut and Ash sourced from @urban_salvage Finished with @fiddesaustralia Satin Hard Wax Oil Built out of @dcstudio_melbourne . . . . #woodworking #wood #walnut #ash #brass #odyssey #handmade #woodworker #woodwork #timber #lumber #design #interiordesign #furniture #wooddesign #carpentry #woodcraft #carpenter #handcrafted #maker #furnituredesign #interior #woodworkersofinstagram #decor #home #shelf #bookshelf #woodworkers #australianmade

Some fiddleback, book-matched Jarrah to kick off your weekend. Check out the whole article here: https://www.odysseytimberworks.com.au/side-tables

Happy Friday!

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/890855695469907

The Cherry Hall Table in the page banner is up for sale. Hit the link for the marketplace post, or get in contact for more information at [email protected]

New Insta post! Check it out!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CpB0DbIPr_M/

Don't throw out your off-cuts kids. . A couple of nesting side tables to compliment the coffee table from yesterday's post. I'll let the timber do the talking - scroll to the end. . Jarrah and Sydney Blue Gum sourced from @urban_salvage Finished with @fiddesaustralia Matt Hard Wax Oil Built out of @dcstudio_melbourne . . . . #woodworking #wood #odyssey #handmade #woodworker #woodwork #timber #design #interiordesign #furniture #carpenter #handcrafted #maker #furnituredesign #interior #custom #woodworkersofinstagram #home #woodworkingcommunity #woodworkers #australianmade #jarrah #sydneybluegum

New Insta post! Check it out!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Co_RI_AvRdw/

Another coffee table post to break up all the birch-ply drawer posts! Top made from West Australian Jarrah, and the base is made from Sydney Blue Gum. . With what has been happening to the Jarrah forests in WA (And to a larger extent, the native forests Australia-wide), being able to source these stunning boards was a case of right-place, right-time. Originally meant to be five boards wide, the center board for the top was far too beautiful to be used for this purpose, so instead I took a small off-cut, and used it for the inlay instead. You can see part of what that board looked like in my previous post! . The aim of this design is to let the timber do the talking; keep the shape simple, clean, and allow the material to speak for itself, because not only is it an extreme privilege to work with such incredible material, it's also an enormous responsibility to do it sufficient justice. Wanton clearing of old-growth forests has reached a disastrous level in Australia, so any attempt to showcase the incredible resource that very often ends up bulldozed or chipped for mulch is in itself a small revolution. . For more information on what is being done to Australian forests, read here from the Wilderness Society: https://www.wilderness.org.au/protecting-nature/deforestation/10-facts-about-deforestation-in-australia . Jarrah and Sydney Blue Gum sourced from @urban_salvage Finished with @fiddesaustralia Matt Hard Wax Oil Built out of @dcstudio_melbourne . . . . #woodworking #wood #odyssey #handmade #woodworker #woodwork #timber #design #interiordesign #furniture #carpenter #handcrafted #maker #furnituredesign #interior #custom #woodworkersofinstagram #home #woodworkingcommunity #woodworkers #australianmade #jarrah #sydneybluegum