When it comes to Australian hardwoods like Victorian Ash, where the main attraction is to be able to see the grain by putting a clear polish on it, rather than covering it with a paint; it makes sense for the timber to have clean lines and be free of defects. You would think then that finger-jointing this timber would dilute the visual look you are trying to achieve. Well recently we did a job where the results surprised us ...

A few months back we had a request from a customer to manufacture 250 lengths of 50mm Victorian Ash round dowel in 2.7 metre lengths. When you purchase a pack of Victorian Ash it does NOT come in set lengths, rather it is random in length with pieces varying from 1 metre to 5 metres and every length in between. Trying to get 250 lengths at 2.7 metres would result in having to go through a huge number of packs of timber trying to get the number of pieces required.

It was whilst trying to solve this dilemma that I remembered a conversation that I had with a local timber supplier who said that he had set length packs of 5.7m Victorian Ash that was 65 x 65 finish. This timber could easily be machined to a 50mm dowel, and the 5.7m lengths could be cut into 2 pieces at 2.7 metres with a small offcut. Perfect ! The only issue was that it was finger-jointed.

I spoke to the customer and explained the problem. To my surprise they were happy to proceed, so I ordered the timber and ran the profile. The results of which can be seen in the photos in this blog. I was blown away by how good the final product looked, and more importantly, just how minimal the the finger-jointing impacted on the over appearance of the dowel.