This spiral timber is a special feature in our new showroom. Cutting this amazing white pine spiral took about 40 hours! White pine is readily available in our region, and is an attractive honey color. Low shrinkage, minimal cracks and twists are some of the benefits of working with this timber species. Stephen documented this involved process and the photographs below show the steps.
Spiral Timber Process
Stephen started with a 12" x 12" white pine timber
The timber was first cut to length
Mill the timber to the exact size
Resawing the timber to ensure accuracy
Verifying accuracy is always important
Next, layout the center lines
Layout the square joinery
Layout the through tenon
Layout the post top tenons
Cutting joinery by hand
Cutting the the square timber into an octagon
Cutting the octagon
Octagonal is the new shape!
Next step - power plane to take the timber from octagon to round
Begin making the timber round
Continue rounding
Now for the 8"x8" layout
Spiral is laid out first with string
Then the spiral is drawn on the timber
Next step is to start kerfing
Use a mirror to assist with kerfing
The mirror allows you to see around the curve of the timber
Blue tape is used to reference the spiral over joinery that was already cut in the timber
Cleaning kerfs, removing the cut pieces of timber
Cleaning more kerfs
Cutting more with the chainsaw
Be precise with the depth of these cuts
More kerfing
Blue tape is covering the joinery
All four sides are now roughed out
Milling one side flat on the sawmill
Spiral is mostly cleaned
Milling the flat side
Flat side will go against the wall
Spiral is finished and ready for test fit
Test fit
Fit up
