More Beaver Wood Carpentry

We’ve been renovating our west facing courtyard this summer and finally finished the project. One of the finishing touches was three wooden benches for extra seating. These three are arranged in a way that maximizes the view from them as well as facilitating conversations. As I have done with several recent woodworking projects I’ve undertaken, I used as a primary material sticks that have washed out of beaver dams on our creek in the last several years. I collect these sticks, primarily willow and cottonwood, and air dry them slowly.

While these beaver sticks are great for supports none of them is large enough to fabricate a bench top. For that, I sourced live edge Douglas Fir from Colorado forests. We are fortunate to have a source for that and other wood products native to Colorado at Mountain Heart Woodworks in Elbert, CO.

Bench with Beaver cut legs and Douglas Fir live edge top

Bringing together these different materials - soft wood and hard wood, S2S and irregular,  knotty and clear – brings many challenges. The toughest aspect is that the beaver sticks are of course crooked and completely irregular in shape. When joining them together or with something smooth like the Douglas Fir planks, I need to define a primary axis and use that as a baseline for measurement and further adjustments. Even after many projects with this material, I still need to make continuing adjustments on the fly.

Once I cut the beaver sticks for assembly, I need to process them for finishing. I do this by lightly sanding them but preserving as much of their natural texture and beaver inflicted character as possible. I love seeing the pattern of teeth marks and processing. I also prefer to leave as much of the cut ends of branches as possible.

Included here are a few photos of the three new beaver cut wood and Douglas Fir benches – two at 4’-6” and one at 6’-0” - in our renovated courtyard. I hope you enjoy and if you have a project in mind using beaver cut wood, let me know!

Detail showing irregular Beaver cut leg