Ripple Olive Ash

So last year at about this time a client of mine asked about the possibility of having some furniture made from a tree on their property, I went through the pros and cons with them and it it was decided that the tree would be felled by a tree surgeon as it was leaning dangerously towards the house.  As soon as the tree was felled I was to pop over, then inspect to see if it was suitable for furniture and their future projects.

With large old trees sometimes the middle has enough rot to make them unsuitable for anything other than firewood, so we thought it prudent to check it was okay and fortunately the trunk was sound showing a beautiful olive centre.  This is the stage before rot sets in and the timber is still sound but takes on a very dark colour compared the the pinkish white you get for European ash normally.  In fact the colour is quite sort after, so I informed them that the log had nice colour and showed them how it could look with the help of Google images.

Below is the close up of the log showing the demarcation line of the pinkish white timber to the dark olive colour.

Below shows where the log was felled, and onto the tyres to save the driveway.  Here you can also see the bow in the trunk that would of been leaning towards the house.  From the floor to the split of the trunk(which is about eight feet) the trunk leaned nearly three feet plus you of course had the top of the tree which was over the extension you see in the background, very unsafe!

Above we can see the mobile sawmill in its travelling set up.

Above we can see the bow better, it was decided here that while the timber cut in this alignment would yield the best looking, it would however yield the least as the trunk was so bowed.

So it was flipped to get the most from the log shown above.

Above we can see the sawmill taking its squaring cut.

So after repeating this many times we started to get some very usable timber, shown below.

It was soon discovered that not only was the Ash olive, but also rippled throughout which you may be able to see above.

Fast forward a year and my clients were enquiring about the timbers colour as their kitchen is tied up with this log.  The timber will be used to make a table and chairs in their dining room which is open plan with their kitchen, which they would now like to update. Hence the enquiry regarding the colour.  I thought it best if I clean up one side and polish then take it over so that they might better see the colour, which is shown below

And a couple of close up pics showing the ripple below.

So I’m heading over to see them tomorrow with this piece with me so they may have a kitchen made of similar colour soon.  Thanks for looking.