What is “green woodworking”?

Quite simply “green woodworking” is the shaping of wood into useful items whilst the moisture content is still high, preferably before even the free moisture within the cells is lost.

Green wood behaves very differently to seasoned wood and can be shaped by cleaving along or slicing through the turgid fibres rather than breaking through the brittle fibres of seasoned wood. This allows the use of sharp edged tools and the entire shapping process can be carried out by hand producing soft ribbons of wet wood rather that dry dusty saw dust. It is therefore a very pleasant and safe process with none of the cumbersome requirements of dust extraction, ear and eye protection associated with conventional wood work.