Paul Roguszka, Nimbin, NSW

The Sideboard
Carabeen, rose mahogany

The sideboard features yellow carabeen and rose mahogany. I have used tulip oak for the drawer sides and backs, silky oak for the drawer bottoms and hoop pine ply for dust shelves; all timbers native to north-eastern New South Wales. The silky oak is from salvaged stock, while the other timbers are what I refer to as ‘rescued’ timber. I will explain:
I attended an auction where there was a substantial amount of local cabinet timbers offered; sadly, much of it damaged, either by bad storage or water, or in some cases poor conversion. The lots were not stacked but roughly thrown together in piles resulting in split and broken boards. The consensus was that most of the timber on offer was only fit for firewood; indeed any unsold stock was scheduled to be burned. It saddened me to see these once magnificent rainforest trees abused and treated with contempt. This experience made me re-appraise the materials I work with. Yes, the yellow carabeen has sap stain and some surface checking as well as a yellow stain fungus, but I believe that we can no longer afford the luxury of rejecting such rare and precious stock. Therefore, in this piece I have disregarded the ‘defects’ which in the past would have relegated the timber to the firewood pile. The challenge that I have set myself is to do the best I can with what is available to me ‘warts’n all’.
The dates stamped on the timber are from the mid 1980s and the likelihood is that it is the remnants and reject stuff cut for the new parliament house in Canberra.
I made the sideboard using traditional methods with mortise and tenon joints and dovetail joints; all are hand done, as is the carving. The top is edge joined without dowels, biscuits or splines. The adhesives I use are off the shelf products Selleys PVA+ cross link polymer and Vise polyurethane. The finish is two coats of Organoil hard burnishing oil followed by Organoil wood sheen after a couple of weeks.

Concept
The design of this piece started from my desire to use a particular piece of yellow carabeen with a rare flame of blackheart. The rest of the stock was mostly water damaged with sap stain and fungus evident. However, these defects gave the wood a look of weathered stone.
I have had a long time interest in Byzantine and Romanesque architecture in particular the use of decoration. I wanted to produce a piece with the heavy solidity of a stone altar lightened somewhat by the use of decorative carving and inlay, reminiscent of these ancient architectural forms. Nooks, crannies and secret spaces between the columns are also a feature of this architecture; I have tried to echo some of this.
The carabeen needed another timber to bounce off and I find that rose mahogany complements it well. The anarchic blackheart on the drawer fronts relieves the rigid formality; I have purposely left it wild and unfilled.
The whole breaks down into easily manageable units for transportation.

Photos: Marie Cameron