You might call it “creative arboriculture” or maybe “living sculpture.” The art involves guiding young tree development using cables or frameworks and using precise techniques of pruning and grafting.

What could be seen as eccentric is, in fact, detailed and documented experimentation. Gavin is supported by the European Union’s Climate KIC, which subsidizes new sustainable businesses that could reduce carbon emissions in manufacturing. This green aspect is one of Gavin Munro’s greatest motivations. He is keen to share his research: If big companies take it up as a viable production method, then the environment will benefit and, he feels, this alone would be a success. The energy used in transport and manufacture could be reduced massively.

As his reputation spread, his order book filled. Everything growing is, in theory, sold. He also receives commission inquiries. Interestingly, a popular request is coffins for green funerals. The main product is chairs, then various shapes and sizes of earthy lampshades, then a greater challenge: tables.

Although a work in progress, his display of flourishing, organically fed and sculpted young ash, sycamore, hazel, sessile oak, red oak, crab apple, willow and wild cherry already looks like stunning one-off art pieces.

How They Grow

Early on in this project, Gavin observed that chairs are best grown upside-down. While it might seem logical to start with a sapling for each leg, it is not so. Trees grow outwards, so they adapt comfortably to spreading and being formed into chair legs. As Gavin puts it, “You have to learn to think like a tree” by watching what it does. New shoots are soft, vegetable-like and non-fibrous. They can be radically bent and, if suitably supported, as the tree matures that is the shape the new wood acquires.

When the first two healthy shoots grow from a mother root, the chair maker eases them horizontally in opposite directions, creating the chair back’s top rail. As they proceed, vertical shoots sprout. These mature to become back spindles after the maker selectively prunes them down to three or four — whatever works visually. As the outer top rail gains sufficient length (i.e., the width of the chair back), the shoots are bent upwards to push towards the light and form the chair’s back legs, while lateral shoots are trained to begin the growth of the seat.

Gavin has developed a reusable framing box system created from thin cellular plastic sheeting used for signboards, which he has assembled into a chair-shaped mold with sequences of holes to attach the shoots using rubberized ties. The molds are secured in long rows to horizontal fence wires.

As growth proceeds, they begin grafting. New shoots grafted laterally create cross members, and the structural value of joinery framing is ready-grown. Where two or more twigs grow parallel, a careful hand fashions a lengthwise cut and binds them together to create a natural lamination. Gavin proudly showed me a couple of twigs grafted together lengthwise over two seasons. Woodworkers know that laminating timber in the workshop produces greater strength. In addition, the natural fibrous strength of a stick is stronger than similar sized timber with a cut grain. Combining these two factors creates a slender, strong chair leg and an interesting material, which in itself is a useful benefit of these experiments.

Gavin has tried finishing the harvested goods with planers and sanders, or the grinder-mounted Arbotech shaping tool, but he is more inclined to the use of drawknives of various shapes and sizes to stay as green as possible. I will look on with interest to next spring when he begins harvesting the full-grown furniture and hope it won’t put too many of us joiners out of work!

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Nopradol has been carving in the Lanna style for over 35 years, the skills having been passed down in his family. The tradition owes much to carver monks producing devotional works for Buddhist temples. A stunning example, Wat Bupparam, in the center of Chiangmai has doors and window shutters of thick polished teak relief carved with scenes from Buddhist scripture,
much of it epic in scale and detail. The abundant, fertile nature of the Thai countryside is background to the work, especially the succulent and sacred Bhodi Tree under which Buddha is said to have gained enlightenment.

The hill country around the city of Chiangmai in northern Thailand was once the King- dom of Lanna. It was rich in teak, one of the world’s great durable timbers: once used for ocean-going sailing ships, teak can also be carved into details the thickness of a leaf.

With this legacy, the region evolved into a woodworking culture and became the workbench of the nation.

Nowadays, hardwood furniture, much of it fine quality and design, is produced throughout the area. Carvings are made in industrial quantities in the city of Chiangmai, but in the rural areas surrounding Baan Tawai are small workshops where the craft is raised to a higher level.

It’s in this area where Nopradol has his home and workshop. He does have the ability to work in other styles, including Western heraldic images, and he sometimes works on major overseas com- missions. A statue he made of the Buddha, in European oak, stands three meters high in the Thai Sala area of the Westpark in Munich, Germany. Nopra- dol has published a book on his work and runs residential training sessions, like the one I took, in a workshop school next to his home in Baan Tawai.

Some of his Lanna style pieces are nailed casually to the posts of the workshop. The tools he, like other Lanna carvers, uses are pre-industrial: black- smith-made from reclaimed railway line or car springs. The handles are crude sticks from a local shrub selected because it doesn’t split. The gouges are not made in precise dimensions and are, curiously, beveled on both faces.

In recent years, a new generation of carvers has taken up the Lanna tradition and are producing large-scale, ambitious works. Religious themes endure along with a panoply of dragons and hybrid spirit creatures. The greater focus, however, is on the stylized imagery of nature.

These works are on display in the markets of Baan Tawai, where high quality carvings are marketed to tourists. You’ll also find galleries of extraordinary work in the area; photography is banned in these areas due to the possibility of image theft.

Some pieces take up to two years to carve. There are carvings into big tree bases or giant slabs of laminated through-sawn teak portraying jungles covered in creepers with leaves and petals a millimeter thick, undercut in deep layering, creating worlds you could almost walk into. The fragility is awe-inspiring. How these pieces are created without breakage defies the imagination, as does the question of how the pieces are moved. Shipping costs are astronomical — possibly why such work is rarely seen outside of the Kingdom.

Overall, however, the Thai carving market thrives. They export everything from small ornaments to hefty laminated plaques of carved teak the size of a house. In Thailand itself, public buildings are richly embellished with sculpture, traditional teak houses are ornamented with hand-carved features, and Buddhist temples are festooned with works of wooden art. In Thailand, they even carve their vegetables for special occasions!

If you think you are an advanced enough carver to benefit from this insight into Lanna style, you can find out more about Nopradol’s workshops or call the Thai location at +66 (0) 816037306.

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Freebody’s yard produces the “slipper stern” craft, a limousine amongst riverboats. They reproduce and restore electric canoes: a curious fashion in the late 19th century. They restore steam- powered “saloon launches,” a north Thames specialty. They are also world authorities on the upkeep and restoration of the “Riva,” defined as the Ferrari of the power boat world. In addition, customers can bring in wrecks of classic boats found in the mud somewhere, hanging on by a few fibers, and these craftsmen can rebuild them as new.

Careful Wood Selection

I was shown around the workshops by Peter’s son, Richard, who, like his father, was raised on the job. In the shop, African mahogany is the main material. It’s durable, workable and can be finished to a high standard. Timbers are selected both for resistance to constant immersion without deterioration of appearance, and for color to achieve striking contrasts. Cream- colored obeche looks fine in cockpits. Columbian pine, or Douglas fir, is used for structural work, ribs and thwarts.

Freebody’s replicates yesteryear’s fashion of striped decking — based on the look of old timber ships’ decks, which were caulked with pitch between boards and constantly scrubbed flat to swell the timbers and create a seal. The modern replicas are created with marine ply, with grooves five to six millimeters wide routed out in stripes. A specialized sealant is injected into the channels, giving a hard but flexible finish that can be smoothed and varnished over.

To create the deep gloss finish, a boat will be saturated for days with paintable wood preservative and, until recently, finished with a buildup of up to 14 coats of yacht, or spar, varnish, which has a large linseed or tung oil component to assist flexibility. Nowadays, several base coats of West System® high-tech epoxy resin is applied, repeatedly rubbed down and polished with a couple of coats of varnish.

“Take-up” Creates Seal

Despite working with all the splendid craft, Freebody’s staff expresses great affection for the clinker-built dinghy, the basic rowing boat you see by rivers and pulled up on beaches across the world.

Its construction has a simple effectiveness: the slight curve around the entire hull causes the top outer corner of each board to bite into the board above. When placed in the water the first time, a process called “take-up” occurs. Water is absorbed into the timber for several days and swells it. The “bite” between the boards compresses together to form a seal. Richard told me that the Vikings would put fine sawdust into the water, which absorbed between the boards to enhance the process.

The boards are fixed to the ribs using roves: square- shanked copper nails fit through from the outside of the boat into a conical washer. When bashed together using two hammers, a rivet is formed. The flattened cone develops compression. The excess nail is clipped off and the stub riveted over. During “take-up,” the nail hole seals.

Peter Freebody’s own clinker-built dinghy sits in a small workshop upstairs. No one has so far had the heart to finish it. “Maybe one day,” said Richard.

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