I call this “The shelves that blew in.” It is made from a driftwood root and some wood that Hurricane Maria blew down in my neighborhood in 2017.
Back in April we were walking on a beach near Stump Pass in Florida. My son was looking for a stick to play with and grabbed what he thought was a short stick protruding from the sand. He couldn’t budge it, so he asked me to help. I pulled and pulled and it was clear that a lot of it was still under the sand. Now I was committed to finding out what this was. I love a good mystery. I finally managed to get it out of the sand and saw a 5 foot long root. The shape was familiar and I recognized what I think is a slash pine root. It had a cool crooked shape to it and a heft that surprised me. It spoke to me and convinced me that it wanted to be a wall hanging of some kind. So I did what anyone that listens to wood does, I dragged it home.
When I got it home we started working on it with a wire hand brush to get rid of the sand and loose debris. Most of it was pretty solid. There were only a few spots where the wood was pretty deteriorated. I chucked up a wire wheel in my drill and started working on the bad spots. Where the deteriorated wood fell away, I could see a solid reddish wood that looked great. The rest of the wood was in pretty good shape, and just needed some sand removal and rejuvenation.I started in on it with some various Dico Nyalox wheels and cup brushes in my drill. The Nylox brushes are really nice. They come in three different grits, course (grey) medium (orange) and fine (blue). They are easier / less destructive on the wood. I also find that they hold up better than wire brushes. They don’t get bent, or lose bristles. I think over time they just get shorter as the abrasive wears. It does not hurt that they are affordable too. (not a sponsor, or a gift, I genuinely like and use them). By the time I got to the blue Nyalox brushes, the wood was taking on a nice feel and bit of a sheen. There were a few areas with some rising grain that did not respond well to the brush, so I hit them with a card scraper.
Once it was cleaned up, I wasn’t ready to go on. I had no clear idea of what I wanted it to be, so I set it aside to ponder it a while…. and a while longer.
Later that month I had built my gang saw and was surprised by the appearance of the log I had sawn as my first attempt with it. It was one of many logs I picked up at the side of the road after Hurricane Maria had caused so much damage. I originally thought the log was a piece of oak. but when I cut out that first slab and saw the creamy soft wood with the red heartwood I realized it was definitely not oak. It was also harder and much more dense than oak. Sadly I have no idea what it is, other than beautiful.
Coming off my first attempt with the gang saw, there were a lot shaky paths and hesitation marks where some of the early blades were not tracking well. In cleaning up the first slab with a jack plane, I ended up with a piece of wood that was tapered from one end to the other. I thought, “that would make a cool shelf!”
I liked the tapered look and set out to end up with a few tapered slabs to use as shelves.
I had one crack that needed a dutchman. I cut the patch from a piece of wood that came off the driftwood.
With the crack stabilized, I could turn my attention to patching a couple of my early gang saw errors that left some wounds within the shelves.
With the shelf wood prepped I did some more finish planing and card scraping to get it smooth. I also decided to make the ends of the shelves beveled on the bottom. I then applied several coats of Hope’s Pure Tung Oil.
I started to play around with basic design. I traced out a variety of options for the shelf. The final layout was still up in the air but I knew that the driftwood was going to function as the spine. In order for it to be the spine, I needed to make the back edge flat so that it could be flush to the wall.
I put the driftwood into my bandsaw mill sled and used it to slice the back off the spine.
Now that it could sit flat, I could lay it on a flat surface along with the shelves and take a photograph. From the photograph I turn to a method I often use… playing paper dolls ….errr paper modeling. I print it out in black and white, then cut out the parts. With the parts, I can move them around until I get something I like. It also lets me get other people involved in the design phase.
I eventually landed on a design where the right edge of each shelf formed a line diagonally up and to the right. I used dividers to measure the various lengths on the model, then used ratios with the actual measurements to figure out where to put the shelves on the real thing.
On a piece like this, it is hard to maintain square and plumb when there is nothing on it to measure from. It is critical in this case that the three shelves are parallel to each other and that shelf be orthogonal (perpendicular) to the wall. I clamped a board perpendicular to my bench top to guide me while sawing the half-lap dados for the shelves.
I made most of the cuts with my Vaughan Bear Saw Ryoba which worked well because it cuts well and left smooth crisp lines where the shelves will slide.
Wabi Sabi
Thanks for teaching me a new term. I think it is fitting.