Pear and Walnut - A delicious combination?

Walnut is a really beautiful wood to work with - tight grained, dense and stable. What I have in the workshop this week is French Walnut which is a bit lighter in colour than American Walnut, so the first thing I wanted to do with it is marry it with some Pear wood which is much paler and has a sort of pinkish hue to it. I do love a pear and walnut salad too.

This chopping board or dining table platter may still be available to buy on my Etsy store. I know times are tough for a lot of people, so if you like what you see I'd be equally grateful to know that you like what I make, and you can show me just by liking or favouriting any of my Esty shop listings.. Click here to buy or add to your favourites now.

The Pear wood is from the local tree I talked about in the Pear Tree Story earlier and it's a really nice piece of wood that also has a very tight grain. It's almost silky when I run a plane over it. This next piece is going to be lovely.

The piece of walnut I had in mind for this raised chopping board still has the bark on it, so that will give me an edge that follows the grain at one side - this will be the front. The highlight for me will be the wedged through tenon join, and seeing the pear stripes in the walnut top. I'd already cut the leg tenons so this week was all about cutting the walnut mortises very carefully. 

This is a photo I took while planning out this piece - making sure I get the best edge from the walnut plank. You can see the pear wood legs I'd already cut last week.

There are lots of different ways to cut through tenons, but I prefer to do as much of it by hand as possible. After very careful marking out, I'll chisel out from both sides to make sure I have visibly clean joins. 

I want all my kitchen furniture to last and evolve with use. This kind of visible joinery between two different wood species has to be designed to move a little as the wood reacts to environmental humidity's. This is the kind of thing that will evolve and look more and more rustic over time. I hope it finds a good home. 

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