salt and wood

1 Sea Legs Before

2. Paint and resins.

3. Cutting the top.

4. Wax filling holes

5. Floats for legs.

6. Fitting the legs.

7. Legs in.

8. After.

9. Retained paint face.

10. Detail.

11. Rear face timber restored.

12. Rear face with orange wax fill.

14. Rear face detail.

15. Base varnish over rough sawn.

16. Oiled top with yellow wax fill.

17. End grain restored.

18. Top detail with timber putty.

19. Top.

A Eucalyptus plank washed up after the big storms that swept Sydney in August 2011. It looked like it had been in the sea for a while and before that used as some sort of paint or resin mixing block on a boat. Two things struck me. The satisfying proportions of the block and the thick blue and black colour of the dried substance spilled across it. I immediately had an urge to expose some surfaces and retain others to bring out this contrast. The top is clean sanded and oiled to allow use as a food surface. One edge was very lightly sanded and then stiff brushed to clean but retain the paint texture and colours. The back edge was clean sanded and holes wax filled. The base just lightly sanded but kept pretty much rough sawn finish. Some of the bigger top cracks were filled with wood putty to smooth it out for food, cheese and crackers etc. All except the top are varnished finished and finally a batch of found bright orange fishing floats were utilized to create legs to stand the whole thing off the table. All in all the timber, blue paint and orange legs visually vibrate very well.