Sean Hellman - Woodwright Designs

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I have been working on a residency at the Centre for Contemoprary Art and the Natural World, at Haldon Forest Gateway near Exeter. To see whats on at this great gallery click here CCANW I was asked to design and make a series of displays to show describe the main species of timber grown at Haldon. The result is a 3 foot by 10inch sections of the 7 trees displayed on tresles with a dercriptive sign with text and photographs. The woods used are Oak, Silver birch, Larch, Scots pine, Causcican pine, Sitka spruce and Douglas fir. These have proved to be remarkable popular with all the visitors and even the staff at Haldon. This is a simple way to conect the living tree with some of the qualities and characteristics of the timber. The wood has been cut to show all the diferent grain patterns found in these trees.
Douglas fir cut to show the grain of the wood in all possible sections, keeping the trees essential character by using a 10 inch diameter section of the tree with the bark still on.
Detail of the wood grain in Douglas fir The cuts in the logs show off the different grain patterns found in planks or boards that are found in any plank you can buy in DIY shops, timber merchants, builder merchants and sawmills. These include a cross cut of the whole log showing the end grain, this is the 'transverse surface'. A tangential cut shows the grain we find in most of the timber boards we buy see and use and are also known as flatsawn, plain grain, slash grain. The growth ring orientation is from 0 to 45 degrees with the surface. This is shown in the top left of the photo. Radial cut this is where the edges of the growth rings emerge at the surface, with the growth rings vertical when viewed from the end-grain. This type of board or cut is know as quartersawn and is the most stable section of wood you can cut from a tree. This is shown on the far right of the photo.
I was also commissioned to make wooden building blocks for children and even adults. The woods used are the same ones used in the logs above. Each of the 8 different shapes are fashioned from one of the eight woods, so the cubes are Douglas fir, cylinders are silver birch, the arches and squares with circles in are Causican Pine, the triangles are oak, the planks are Larch and the only sections to still have the bark on are Hazel. The table is made from larch and ash, the stools which can be stored under the table are made from cedar and ash. All the wood has either come from Haldon or sourced from a local sawmill, English Timber Ltd on Dartmoor, run by Anton Coaker. I am happy to make similar items for galleries, musuems, schools other educational centres and individuals. Click here to contact me

Douglas-fir Pseudotsuga menziesii

A Softwood and not a true Fir and is native to the USA. Often known as British ‘Columbia Pine’ or ‘Columbian Pine’ here in the UK and as ‘Oregon Pine’ in the USA. It grows from New Mexico up to Washington and British Columbia.
The common name honours David Douglas, the Scottish botinist who first introduced the tree into cultivation in 1826. Douglas is known for introducing many North American native conifers to Europe
The tree in its native country can grow to a maximum of 300ft or 91metres and 3-6 ft dia or .9- 1.8 m dia. The bole or trunk is clear of branches for about 2/3rds of its height, making it a valuable timber which has a high percentage of knot free wood.

The weight when dry is 530 kg/m3 or 33lb/ft3
Douglas-fir wood is used for structural applications that are required to withstand high loads. It is used extensively in the construction industry. Other examples include its use for homebuilt aircraft. Very often, these aircraft were designed to utilise Sitka Spruce, which is getting increasingly difficult to source in aviation quality grades.
This is one of the worlds most important sources of plywood, It is most often used for construction work, interior and exterior joinery, dock and harbour work, marine piling, ship building , mining timber, railway sleepers, cooperage for vats and tanks for chemical plants, breweries and distilleries. Selected logs are cut for veneers.
Traditionally it is used for wood: fuel, fishing hooks, handles, snowshoes, fishtraps; boughs: floor coverings; seeds: eaten; twigs/needles: can exude a sugar like substance which was prized.
The Douglas Fir has distinctive three-forked bracts between the scales on the cones.
A Californian Native American myth explains that each of the three-ended bracts are a tail and two tiny legs of the mice who hid inside the scales of the tree's cones, which was kind enough to be the enduring sanctuary for them during forest fires.

design & development by Integralvision