Club Meeting: 3 September 2025
Report by : Ian Connelly

Shannon started by introducing himself and talking about river timber. Much of his information was sourced from Te Ara Encyclopedia an online resource. For some of the pictures Shannon shared check out https://teara.govt.nz/en/bush-trams-and-other-log-transport

Shannon talked about how they move the logs out of the forest, with bullock teams, rail and river. The applicable method to his demo was the use of the river where the floated the logs down and there were some that got caught up or sunk. There are companies now specialising in recovery of the lost logs. You can find these companies via google such as https://www.nz-native-riverwood.com/ or https://rivien.nz/

Shannon also has a piece of log that had evidence of the crew stamp on the log that would identify who gets paid once the log made it to the mill.

A number of pieces of river timber were passed around, the colour varied depending on the minerals that were in the water.` The timber was very well preserved due to the lack of oxygen.

Next Shannon started talking about the wall hanging he makes, in traditional shapes like the toki (adze) or more of a teardrop shape. This was further enhanced with either ladder binding or weave binding.

The smaller examples he started making from offcuts and as such they were often irregular pieces. The starting point was to mark out the centre line, use a framing square to establish the top at 90 degree to the centre line. Width of the bottom was generally about twice that of the top.

Then to the bandsaw and cut out the shape. The shape is then refined with the help of a power planner, sander, use of wood filler if required and a wire brush to make sure all the dirt is removed from any natural edge or surface.

The surface is then sanded and oiled with a danish oil. First coat is a full flood coats, then the excess is rubbed off. This is then left for 24 hours before some fine sanding and a 2nd coat.

Shannon then demonstrated some of the binding techniques he uses. He suggested that anybody wanting to learn look at Campbell Carving on youtube. Although Shannon was using heavy cord rather than the fine cord on the pounamu shown on the youtube videos, the principle is still the same, but keeping tension is definitely more difficult.

It was another excellent demo which opens up more ideas people can explore in their craft. Thank you Shannon.