Every piece follows the same slow road — British hardwood, air-dried in the workshop, shaped by one pair of hands, finished in oil. This is the whole of it.
Every plank starts at a small mill within ninety miles of the workshop — oak from Yorkshire estates, ash and sycamore from the Dales, walnut from a co-op in Cheshire. Rough boards are cut to length and stacked with stickers between each layer so air can move through the pile.
There's no kiln and no shortcut. The stack sits in the workshop until the moisture content drops below ten percent — around six months for thinner boards, closer to a year for thick slabs. Air-dried timber holds its shape better and takes oil more deeply; the wait is part of the work.
When a board comes off the stack, Ewald flattens one face with a hand plane, squares an edge, and brings the piece to thickness. The shape is traced and cut, edges eased with a small block plane, corners kept honest.
Then the sanding: five grits, coarse to fine, finishing at 220 — the point where the grain goes silk under your hand. About four hours of bench time in all, spread across the week a piece needs between stages.
Two coats of food-safe oil, twenty-four hours apart, each hand-rubbed in and the excess wiped away. The oil deepens the colour and seals the surface — and because nothing else goes on, a tired board can always be re-oiled back to life at home.
Once it's cured, the piece takes the maker's mark and goes into a recycled-card box with a small card naming the wood, the week it was finished, and the hands that made it.