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 Now that the top section has been cleaned up and the rotten areas have been trimmed back, I can start to plan out how I am going to cut the piece up. I hope to be making some click pencils and twist top and roller ball pens, plus some apples and bottle stoppers. In time, I would hope to be able to offer ANY of my designs, all made from genuine "Albion Wherry Oak". I will need to take some expenses out of anything I sell, but all remaining monies will go to the "Norfolk Wherry Trust". This is a worthy cause, so please, help me support a really good project, preserving our heritage.
The top section has now been cut into usable shapes. Several pieces have been salvaged for making pens, a section in the middle looks good for bottle stoppers, and I hope to get pieces out of the large section to make some fruit.
This is the first set of pen blanks. One piece has been cut ready to make a pen, and at the bottom we see the very first pen made from "Genuine Albion Oak". The pen didn't polish as well as I would have liked which may be due to some sort of contamination in the wood. Even so, it is still special, and could be a valued Christmas present to anybody that wants it. This pen and several others to follow are available direct from me for £10 each, and for every one I sell, I will give £6.50 to the Norfolk Wherry Trust.
At the same time as getting the old knee section, I also picked up 3 odd lengths of rubbing strake. These also had been discarded, and subsequently left to the ravages of nature, for how long I cannot say. Most people would see this as fire wood, whereas I knew that great surprises may well lie within. All the old bits of metal were removed from the first of the three pieces, which was then cut into approximately 6" lengths. As with the knee section, the timber within was almost perfect, a true testament to the historical build quality of 'Albion'. I turned one of the sections into a rectangular candle, and immediately saw the beauty of the grain and the staining which is a common feature where iron and Oak are interacting with each other.
Two more sections were prepared and glued together to form a larger section from which I turned a round candle, Again, beautiful grain and staining. These tee-light candles, along with whatever else I can make from the strakes and the knee will be passed over to the trust to be sold as souvenirs, hopefully, generating useful funds to continue the good work.
 From the first knee section I managed to make some pens and 14 tea light candles. They were all delivered to the trust on February 20th 2010. It was really good to see people look upon a collection of wood turnings with such appreciation. After all, the pieces I left with them on that day should sell for about £100, and that is a really good contribution, all made from scrap, and going directly back to the trust. During this winter the trust has undertaken a major restoration and refit on the boat including the complete replacement of the tabernacle (that's the part which holds the mast up). As a result, I now have a new pile of old timber which needs to be converted into turning stock and subsequently, made into anything which will sell. Clearly, the next few months were going to be quite busy.
I still have some large sections of old timber which, as yet, are too damp to use. This will probably get worked on in the next few months.
After closer examination I found the wood pile actually contained quite a large proportion of scrap timber. I suspect this was due to the external paint layer which had in effect, trapped a large quantity of moisture in the timber for a long time. Some sections however yielded a selection of very nice timber, allowing me to make an extensive selection of smaller pieces (44 in all). They are being delivered to the trust in June 2010.
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