I first started learning about timber as a kid, watching my grandfather in his shed and passing him tools, sweeping up sawdust and holding boards steady for him. He bought me my first hand plane when I was 12, and my first project with it was shaping a couple of pairs of stilts for my brother and I.

Grandad would take me along when he went to the tip. In those days, you could wander around and scavenge, so we usually took home some prizes, sometimes timber for the furniture that he made. That was my first experience of timber recycling.

My dad was also a big influence on my business. He did his phd in astrophysics, doing some very theoretical mathematics on the atomic reactions inside the sun (I know this doesn’t sound too relevant). Later while working in the US, he was told by a colleague that his phd had been used to shortcut some work on making the hydrogen fusion bomb. That shook Dad up and from then on his career took a different direction, becoming very involved in the Society for Social Responsibility in Science and renewable energy research. As I grew up I listened to Dad and his scientist mates talking about their research and the state of the world. Their viewpoint made a lot of sense to me and environmental sustainability became an important part of my life and work as well.

But back to timber!

I learnt to work with salvaged timber on a bigger scale in the early 1990’s, while making furniture and kitchens with Paul Lynzaat as his (unofficial) apprentice.  It was, and still is, really exciting to plane back a dark old grey piece of demolition timber and see the fine grain and rich colour. That got me hooked.

Paul taught me to salvage the timbers from house demolitions. There is a lot of timber in an old cut roof (so called because it was hand cut and built on site by carpenters), usually 3-4 tons just in the roof of a standard 3 beddie. We used to stand on the top plates and cut the rafters off at the birds mouth, then throw them sideways till they came off at the ridge, and slide them down into the truck. Good balance, a sharp chainsaw and plenty of enthusiasm were the key ingredients (these days a good demolition company might use an excavator with a good operator to remove timbers carefully). 

Having made contact with the local demolition companies and done a few salvage jobs, I saw how much good timber was going to waste.  Once a building is ripped down and loaded onto trucks to be taken to the tip, there is little left among the crushed and splintered remains that is re-usable. 

This was the impetus to start "Thor's Hammer". By helping increase the value and create a demand for recycled timber, waste going to land fill is reduced and the Australian hardwoods used in old buildings get a second life appreciated for their quality, beauty and history.

Thor Diesendorf
Thor’s Hammer

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