The Drying Shelves: Why Every Piece Has to Wait
A root pulled from the earth is full of moisture. Before it can become a piece, it has to wait on a shelf, sometimes for a long time.
There is no way to hurry a root. You can only stand a shelf in a quiet room and let it come to terms with the air.
Summary
- Freshly dug roots hold a great deal of moisture and must dry slowly.
- Slow drying helps prevent cracking and warping.
- We keep roots and rough-turned pieces on wire shelves while they settle.
Key takeaways
- Patience is built into the process, not added to it.
- Drying wood is a slow negotiation with air and humidity.
- Rushed wood can fail later, so we do not rush it.
If you walked into our storage room, you would see something that looks a bit like a library of strange vases. Wire shelves, four or five levels high, crowded with pale, heavy forms, each one with its own shape. They are roots and rough-turned pieces, waiting.
Why they wait
A tree is mostly water. Even after a root has been out of the ground for some time, it holds moisture deep inside. If you dry wood too fast, the outside shrinks while the inside is still wet, and the stress tears the wood. Cracks open. Shapes warp. A beautiful root can be ruined.
The safe approach is slow. We let the roots sit in a shaded, ventilated space so the moisture can leave gradually. In woodworking, this is not controversial. What makes it hard is the time it takes, and the fact that nothing about it can be sped up without risk.
The look of the shelves
The wire racks we use were chosen for a simple reason: they let air move around every side of a piece. You can see the effect in the pieces themselves. As they dry, the color settles. The pale body warms, and the streaks stand out more clearly.
I like to walk through the room in the morning, when the light comes in from the side. The forms look almost like a crowd of figures standing in a gallery, each one distinct. It is one of the few places where I can see the whole scope of what we are working on at once.
Rough turning, then rest
Some roots are rough-turned first, meaning the turner removes the bulk of the wood and leaves the walls thicker than the final piece. Then the piece rests again. This lets any remaining stress release before the final shaping. It is one of the reasons a finished piece takes so much longer than the hours spent at the lathe would suggest.
Why we accept the delay
It would be commercially easier to produce faster. But we are making objects meant to last, and wood that has been rushed tends to show it later. We would rather wait. This is part of what we mean by slow luxury, an idea we return to in A Slow Luxury Manifesto.
Common questions
How long do the roots take to dry?
It depends on the size and the density of the root. We do not give a fixed time, because we let each piece tell us when it is ready.
Can finished pieces still crack?
Wood is a natural material and always responds to humidity. Slow drying greatly reduces the risk, but we also explain how to look after a finished piece.
Keep reading
Every piece is one of one.
Browse the specimen archive and acquire the piece that speaks to you. Each is catalogued once and sold once.