The Green Wood Guide
Green woodworking’ is an ancient method of fresh wood manipulation that remained nameless until Baltimore chairmaker, Jennie Alexander, coined the term in the 1970s.
Jennie, who passed away recently, was also fond of other words like ‘caddywompus’, which according to her good friend and green woodworking stalwart, Peter Follansbee, was used to describe something that just wasn’t right.
And for those of you who have dabbled in green woodworking using Australian trees you may have uttered through gritted teeth something akin to ‘this bloody log is caddywompus’!
Because there’s no denying it, Australian wood is hard, sometimes really hard, but so much of this confuses the workability of green wood with the dried and seasoned end product that’s as tough as a shady crim found bench pressing in a prison yard.
The sheer variety of tree species in Australia (currently estimated at around 5,500) means that opportunity and discovery, and challenges of
