Friday 14 February 2014

Mushroom Seats

The Pre-School my Daughter attends are making a 'Sensory Garden' for the children to enjoy (when the weather gets better!). They have a very limited budget and knowing that I was a 'wood man' they asked if I could help out by making some 'mushroom' seats for the kids to sit on'. I agreed that if they could source some suitable hardwood (I had nothing of a suitable diameter) I would gladly give them some time to make the seats.
 A local wood yard 'kindly' offered them ten 'hardwood' logs to use, the lady organising the project collected them in her horse trailer and brought them round, upon opening up the trailer I was confronted with one partly rotten Oak log and nine half rotten softwood fir trunks, years old and soaked in muddy water...great!( I have dealt with this woodyard in the past and wasn't in the least surprised at their 'kindness'..........)
 I felt bad telling the lady that this timber was no good, completely unsuitable for making the seats from  especially as they can't  be treated with chemical preservatives ( you can imagine how quickly even a fresh piece of untreated fir is going to start decaying and how rough the end grain tops would get as the soft part of the grain structure goes, leaving that ridged texture....).
 Thankfully after our disappointing start she managed to get some nice Oak logs elsewhere which were perfect for the job! I turned them on the lathe and made sure all the surfaces and edges are sanded smooth with absolutely no splinters to keep all those little hands safe!
 My kids were very keen to test them out before we delivered them!