Another great sunny and warm autumn day here at Buy Design Gallery. We had a great weekend of making and craic. "Repeat offenders" Dave and Gail were there making shaving horses and hedge chairs. Their work is always good and its great to see them coming on with the green wood. New boy Gavin made a fantastic chair at his first attempt on the hedge chair course. Beautiful lines and accurate construction. Let's see if he can encourage more of Scotlands architectural community to learn about timber, tools and technique - first hand. Mackem and Tackem - Make Them and Take Them coined by our Durham Dave - could be a new strap line for The Big Tree Society courses. Some new course dates up the the booking forms for 2013 folks - have a look.

We Like this ....... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzNUrZbalss&NR=1&feature=endscreen

Research intern Sara Dreiser, left, and Ed Gilman, a University of Florida
environmental horticulture professor, paint dots on a tree at Morton
Arboretum, creating targets for a stereo digital imaging system developed by
NASA. (Chuck Berman, Chicago Tribune) Aeronautic engineers and arborists gathered recently in a rather alien-looking patch of woods at the Morton Arboretum in  Lisle to figure out where trees are weakest and what makes them fall.
After stripping the bark from a handful of specimens infested by emerald ash
borers, they painted the trunks white with black dots. One at a time, the
scientists trained two high-tech digital-imaging cameras on each, creating
perfect 3-D computer images of the trees before arborists pulled them down with
cables attached to a winch. By measuring the movement of each dot as pressure built on the tree, scientists could pinpoint areas of weakness — a great tool in helping experts determine risk assessment about how and where a tree might come down.

We were delighted to be asked by Big Tree pal Gerry Boyle if he could come along to one of the courses and take some photographs for a project he was working on. He hadn't signed up for the stool making - but soon became invloved. Here is what we think is a very engaging and intuitive insight to the outcomes we always hope for in our work here at The Big Tree Society.
http://issuu.com/eoincox/docs/making_of_a_wooden_stool?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222

We've put some New Course Dates up for 2013. Of course we have the really poplular stool and chair days / weekends andwe've thought up a couple of new ones for you. These have all booked up quickly this year so don't ponder too much about what you might want to try next year !. For those wanting to make a Shave Horse and would like a bespoke weekend - just get in touch. We can arrange a special weekend for that.
We're being asked for more Group Events either here at Big Tree or out in your own woodlands or workplace - so you might want to consider that. Please ask about such an event.
Remember we have our Timber Tokens ( a voucher for yourself, friend or colleague) Book here

Here's some beautiful, amazing, provoking images taken from the web. Credits
given where found.