Posted on September 09 2025
At HNT Gordon, plane making isn’t just a matter of sawdust and steel; it begins far earlier, out where the desert sun beats down and the horizon rolls on forever. A thousand kilometres west of the East Coast, amongst the harsh beauty of Australia’s inland, is where the journey of every one of our hand planes truly begins. From the standing tree to the finished tool, we see inspiration everywhere!
The trip is plotted months ahead; gear checked, chains sharpened, weather watched. In truth, there’s always a queue of mates keen to tag along, but for safety and sheer practicality, the expedition is pared down to two. One ute, one dual-axle trailer, a couple of saws, axes, wedges, and the patience of saints.
The first task is to find the right tree, no easy thing when thousands stand before you. Each trunk must be circled, inspected, and doubted; every hollow, twist, or scar tells a tale. Gidgee is a cruel companion for machinery, but a faithful one for tools that last generations. It takes a planemaker’s eye to glimpse a jointer or a palm smoother hiding inside a standing trunk.
When felled, the cross-section often reveals itself as something extraordinary; large sections of velvety chocolate heartwood edged with pale, stone-hard sap. These defect free sections are sawn into billets, two feet long, rough as loaves of bread, bark and sapwood still clinging on. Some will weigh 20 to 50 kilos apiece, sharp-edged and ready to draw blood at the first careless lift.
Each billet is painted with a sealer on the ends and covered in pallet wrap like some strange outback treasure, ready for the long road east. The ute and trailer groan under the load, but it’s honest cargo. Out here, the reward at day’s end is simple and perfect: a beer so cold it stings, a pub meal that tastes like a banquet, and the kind of sleep only earned by those who’ve battled trees older than memory.
At week’s end, the cargo is tightened, ropes tested, and the dawn run begins. To watch the sunrise in the outback is to see the land in its truest majesty; it lifts the heart and makes the twelve-hour drive home pass in a kind of reverie.
Back at the shed, each billet is marked with its tree, its date, and its story, stacked high on pallets to begin the long, slow drying process. Months pass. Years, even. Only then will the billets be shaped into the planes we send around the globe.
It is a long journey, yes—but one worthy of the timber and of the craftsman who takes it in hand.
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