| Ian Laval classic hand-made furniture |
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| Ian Laval classic hand-made furniture |
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 Ian Laval dealing with a large fallen Garry oak on Vancouver Island's Saanich peninsula  The Garry oak being sawn  Red cedar stump at Wildwood, Merve Wilkinson's sustainable forest near Ladysmith, Vancouver Island.  The heart of a 100-year-old red cedar -- book-matched pieces ear-marked for cabinet panels.  Felling an English brown oak  Gob and side-cuts made  The tree falls, swung on the winch rope     A large tree of English burr oak  Early days......Wedging a large English oak  A fresh load of Scots pine  Dealing with a large burr elm butt  Mature English oak split with the chainsaw  Rack bench sawing an oak beam  End-racked Scots pine, yew and oak  Quarter-sawn English oak in stick  Ian Laval, tractor, 10-ton winch and timber rig |
'Furniture-making starts with the Ian
Lavalt
Ian Laval began making furniture in England in 1970. Driven by a shortage of good, properly sawn wood for high quality, traditional furniture-making he quickly moved to felling, sawing and processing trees himself.es himself. He built a small sawmill powered by a tractor-driven rack-bench with a 60-inch inserted tooth saw, heavy lifting gear to handle logs up to four tons, drying sheds and a kiln in which to finish the drying process after initial air-drying. From then on his workshop used only timber from the locality -- within tractor-driving distance. The main species were oak, plus a variety of others including wych-elm, ash, sycamore, yew, cherry and occasional fruitwoods. With access to the whole tree, Ian Laval -- always working single-handed -- sawed natural shapes, like curves from the tree's buttresses and crotches for specialised use in his furniture designs. And the same trees produce a wide range of beautiful sawn veneers from burrs, crotches and many interesting features hidden inside the tree and revealed on the saw-bench. Most importantly, total control over all the processing stages of his raw material enabled Ian Laval to produce wood entirely fit for the exacting requirements of the traditional furniture-maker. Quarter-sawing, recognising the way in which wood grows, dries and performs in use, is the principle applied in his sawing. The striking medullary rays of oak are revealed only by quarter sawing and the resulting material is considerably more stable than in through- or slash-sawing. Freshly-sawn timber is first end-racked to allow the sap-laden surfaces -- the potential target of fungal attack -- to dry before being laid flat in stick. Sticked timber is allowed to air-dry for at least one year, depending on the species and sawn thickness, before being loaded into the kiln. Ian Laval has lectured extensively on practical timber technology and run courses for education authorities in the UK. horities. |
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