An incredible piece of timber

Joined
Jul 17, 2015
Messages
58
About four years ago I took a tip to the Chatham islands off the coast of NZ. Whilst over there I found an old Akeake tree which had died standing so me and a few other guys grabbed some chainsaws and divided it into pieces which we shared between ourselves. Four years later I cut out a few scale sized pieces to reveal some of the most incredible colours I have ever seen in a piece of natural timber; vibrant greens and turquoise with streaks of black and band of yellow and burnt umber, the picture does it no justice.



DSC_9427.jpg


Akeake translates to "forever and ever" in Maori as it's an extremely hard, close grained and dense timber that was prized for its durability as tools made from the wood seemed to last "ake ake".
 
Nice. Looking forward to seeing what you put it on!
 
I live in New Zealand and I've never seen this tree before! Time to do some digging around.
 
I live in New Zealand and I've never seen this tree before! Time to do some digging around.

Akeake doesn't normally have this kind of colouration, I think is has something to do with it being a Chatham island subspecies as this is the only Akeake tree that I or any of my woodworking friends have found which has this kind of colour. Akeake grows commonly in the mainland and, like kanuka, is commonly cut down in scrub clearing which is a good way to find knife sized pieces of either wood. The colour of the timber varies from plant to plant, either a blonde-white timber or, more commonly a dark gold walnut-like colour, verging on an ebony in some pieces. It is also by far the hardest of all of our native timbers, Kanuka or Rata don't even come close to the sheer tool blunting ability of Akeake.
 
Back
Top