Micheal Connor Woodwork

Micheal Connor Woodwork is a small family business working from our home in the beautiful Corndale Valley (15 minutes to Lismore - 25 minutes to Byron Bay in Australia). Travelling to work now involves only a 50-metre walk to the workshop and timber storage sheds.

Timber supplies come from fallen trees or clearing work, which used to be slabbed with home made chainsaw mills. This sort of work yields large heavy slabs to be sorted and dried for future use. It is best left to young strong people who haven't yet damaged their backs stacking slabs all day. Most logs are now cut up with a portable mill (Lewis-saw). This allows for logs to be cut straights into boards and squares. Large sections (8 × 4) are still cut to allow resawing at a later date on the bandsaw for less waste and the ability to book match boards for special appearances. Another advantage of the portable mill is that it comes with a very strong German owner-operator.

More timber comers from an ongoing arrangement with a veneer mill that supplies us with "backing boards" from their slicer. These boards range in size from 20-25 mm thick, to blocks 400 × 400 × 2700. After manually resawing these for years on a large bandsaw they are now cut at a local timber merchant on their 54-inch Isles Forge resaw 60HP.

This saves us days of work and leaves more time to sort and grade boards to be sprayed and stacked to dry. These sources have given us a range of more than 30 Australian species of both hardwoods and more common cabinet timbers.

I don't believe I have developed any particular style of furniture design. I like to build functional pieces, rather than arty pieces. Style is largely decided by clients who want to match existing pieces or their own ideas to suit their lifestyle. Once the overall look is decided, then the most appropriate joinery and construction methods are chosen to ensure that these pieces are still fulfilling their intended purpose in 100 years or more. Traditional joinery methods are proven performers.

These methods include the use of dovetails (for both carcase and drawer construction), mortice and tenons, sliding dovetails, splined or keyed mitres, and dowels. Most of these joints are hand fitted to exacting tolerances. Only when the joint fits properly, will everything go together in the intended manner.

The type of finish is dependent on the style and intended use of the piece. Lacquer and oil finishes are very serviceable on heavily used furniture, such as dining tables and chairs, but for more traditional furniture, the look and feel of French polish is superior. Subtle colour variations of shellac can be matched to different timbers, and the level of gloss and finishing make this the most versatile finish of all, from sealed and waxed, all the way to a grand piano finish, hand rubbed and burnished - it is superb.