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Ian
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Ian
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Gallery About the furniture Contact Ian Laval
The Wood
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'Furniture-making starts with the tree.'
Ian Laval began making furniture in England in 1970. Driven by a shortage of good, properly sawn and processed wood for high quality, traditional furniture-making he quickly moved to felling and sawing trees 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 has used only timber from
With access to the whole tree, Ian Laval -- always working single-handed -- saws 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 has 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. In practice, Ian Laval maintains a minimum five-year supply of available sawn timber for his furniture workshop. Ian Laval has lectured extensively on practical timber technology and run courses for educational authorities.
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