About 1997, the family told me to find a hobby and stop being a grumpy old man (a later double hip replacement also improved the temper).  Not wanting to watch the TV soaps, I bought a lathe and started woodturning.

It was a decision made after some consideration, even though I have always worked with wood and have built most of our family room furniture (buffet, bookcase, TV cabinet and wine rack, etc).  The considerations were several; cost of equipment, ego, would I become bored with the exercise or would it expand and continue to challenge.  Could I do it?

I now find the challenges increasing, in trying to improve my techniques, design and form, material selection and finishing.

Early on I looked at the work of other Western Australian (WA) wood turners, and in my contrary way then decided not to concentrate on using jarrah and sheoak.  Having worked as a field exploration geologist, I had seen the variations in other WA native timbers that I had access to though my work and decided to use these timbers.

One of these timber types was the 'mallee root', the root legume or ball developed by many eucalypt species from the drier or near desert areas of WA. These are a very hard timber with burl-like grain coupled to the very irregular development of the root system.
 

In 2005, I took a job interstate and as we fully intend to return to Perth, we have kept the base there.  As we are renting interstate that required most of the woodturning gear was left behind; the upside (I think) was that it allowed me to start making more furniture for the rental house; dining table, bed head, occasional table, bedside chest of drawers plus a workbench.

The dining table is a red gum slab about 1.8m x 0.9m x 40mm thick; the side table is black hearted sassafras from Tasmania on Perspex base about 0.5m dia.  The bedside chest of drawers are jarrah to match the bedposts of the bedhead, both are Danish oil, machine sanded to 2500um and then waxed; makes an incredibly smooth tactile finish. The jarrah tallboy has been completed since returning to Perth to match the bedside chest of drawers, difference being the tallboy is machine sanded tung oil then waxed. My wife gives them a wipe over with a wax about once a month and the smooth tactile finish continues to build.

The bedhead is made of purely Australian timbers; working out from the centre is sheoak, Cleland blackbutt, silky oak, jarrah, camphor laurel, unknown eucalypt, mulga, wandoo with Tasmanian oak as spacers.  I have to admit I spray lacquered this as it was just too hard to sand and wax.

The strips are 40mm wide and about 5mm thick, as there is no backing I have 25mm triangular pine strips behind for support.

Any constructive criticisms or critiques are always welcome and I hope you enjoy my work.