We were recently commissioned by Ben Whistler Ltd to make some rather chunky green oak furniture side tables hewn from heavy green oak blocks, for a well known celebrity chef’s private London residence.

We like a challenge and as usual the time scales were tight; we didn’t want to have kitchen knifes flung at us if we didn’t deliver on time, so we managed to get the raw green oak blanks swiftly from the sawmill and set about the task ahead.

In the workshop a makeshift manual lathe was set up to turn the round one, whilst the square format ones where slightly easier to fabricate. After a lot of sawing, hewing & chiselling work the blocks took shape and we got to a point where they were ready for the final sanding. Green oak being full of moisture especially further in to the trunk, meant we had to wait to attack the sanding for a day or so until they had dried out sufficiently. Luckily the sun arrived to help with the drying and the sanding marathon began. A few ‘random orbit’ hours later, they were ready and as you can see in our photos, they turned out rather well. For reference the cable drum base they are sat on is 2 metres diameter.

Ben Whistler were keen to grab them as soon as they were ready and as we are based in the sticks, they were duly sent off to London, to be stained and finished. Everyone was delighted with the finished results and we hope to be involved with another interesting oak related project soon.

I just hope ‘our’ famous chef doesn’t stub his toe on them…