Ronan's Report

I was born into fly fishing and trade. I never had to search for what I was meant to do with my life, they were right there in front of me and I took them both. I feel very lucky about that. Many people spend their lives not knowing just what it is they’re meant to be doing! My dad was a builder. Every male member on his side of the family were tradesmen too – including some of the best furniture makers in Ireland. I worked with many of them in various facets of woodworking and trade over the years. The two men who inspired me the most in trade were my dad and Joe Conneely from Beola Crafts. They were cousins and great friends. Sadly, Joe left us too soon but I often think of him. He was a brilliant woodworker. He had a short fuse and I was often nervous to look sideways when I worked there but I learned from him. We’d often stay back after work to glue up tops or whatever, then the pressure was off him and we just had the craic like friends and often went for a pint afterwards. I remember some of our chats even now and that’s 25 years ago.

Woodworking is a part of my life that equals in importance to fishing but it’s not something I generally share on social media. I like to keep it for myself. This furniture piece crosses the void into fly fishing so I thought it would be fair to share. Pretty much everything I make these days is for our house. I haven’t been in the profession for 12 years now. I really love to recycle or reuse wood. I collect old wood whenever the opportunity arrises. I’ve gone into demolished houses taking what I could, old barns, used furniture, doors, windows, used building wood, drift wood, offcuts, whatever. My friends know this and some of them drop off wood to me now and again. Right now my stock is well depleted!

I designed the desk in a few minutes. I knew what I needed so I just sketched that out. I planned to work out some finer details during the build. True to how I build these days, the desk was made entirely from recycled wood. One of the things I like about recycling is that the look the finished piece is determined by the available material. I build with what I have – nothing else, thats the challenge. The piece is as tall as my longest planks – which were from some used rimu bed frames destined for the skip. I used all this rimu making the sides and shelves so then I had to change wood for the worktop. I had some really top notch mahogany from an old bench seat in Queenstown. After making up the worktop I realised I had a nice bit left over. The cogs started turning. At his stage I assembled the carcass.

I used up all my oak (from some old headboards) making the drawers so I earmarked some of what I thought was kauri for the drawer fronts and doors. Turns out it was macrocarpa, initially I was disappointed that I didn’t use the macro for the drawers and the stunning oak for the fronts and doors but the macro was the cleanest and straightest grain I’ve seen. Really beautiful stuff so my regret quickly faded. This is one of the joys of recycling; the unknown, unplanned evolution of the piece. The back of the cabinet ultimately determined the panel colour in the doors. This was not planned, just an example of managing the randomness of the build process as best I can. My neighbour was taking out an old fence so I took anything that was still in good shape. I ripped up a heap of it to make up the back of the cabinet but I didn’t like green appearance since the wood was treated. I hid the green colour with a wash I made by mixing a little left over grey paint with water about 8/1. I really liked the grey colour so I used it in the door panels too. This was actually a saviour because it made pine acceptable as the panels. I was so low on materials at that stage in the build that I had to use that cheap, fast grown pine but the grey wash made it interesting. Then it dawned on me to use the offcuts from the worktop to make the small drawer fronts as a nice contrast to the macro. This worked really well and as luck would have it, I had just enough for the curved piece to hide the strip light.

The most interesting piece of wood in the build was from a piece of driftwood I found on Haast Beach on this trip. It was 1500x80x50 with some well rusted metal in it. I brought it home and put it on the shelf for over a year to dry. I needed a piece to make the top mould. after I removed the metal it wasn’t long enough so I ripped it with the intention of book matching it which will also effectively double the length (see image!). The grain was amazing. Blue staining from the rusting metal had seeped into the wood. Striking orange flames going into the blue and some white sapwood. I had an idea to cut a wave detail on it to honour this piece of driftwood from the wild Haast Beach. I love how it turned out. The sapwood like sea spray on top of the wave and Japanese art like appearance of flame and colour. My last idea was to mount an angler fish between the waves on a piece of that same driftwood. I left the top natural and weather beaten to represent the horizon on a wild day. Guy mounted a light on to it for me just for fun. And that was it! A piece of furniture just for myself. I have not done that before I think!!

I’m happy with the result. I enjoyed the build process and watching it evolve. I enjoyed the distraction from this mental world. I love the fact that there’s so much history in there. Recycled wood from all over the place getting another life. As I get older I’m getting more patient and better able to just enjoy the build. This was fun.

Next season is almost full but there’s an odd gap. Email ronan@sexyloops.com or visit my website. You can check out my flies over on Fulling Mill.

Tight lines, Peace.. Ronan..