Hopbush
is found all over the Central Highlands on sandy or loamy soils. It
can grow to around 4 metres high with a trunk to about 100mm diameter at
best.
Hopbush starts flowering around October and fruits through to about March.
Normally just a spindly shrub, older specimens show a distinct spiral
pattern in their bark which also applies to the timber.
Hopbush timber is of medium weight ,is fairly close-grained and very
colourful.
The grain runs in a spiralling direction which adds an unexpected level of
difficulty to turning this timber but a little bit of planning and patience
gets around it. Grain direction aside, the timber machines and sands well
and takes a very high finish.
I knocked a piece off the corner of this blank to show the grain
following the spiralling bark.
Because of the limited size of this timber and the large radial cracking
in it, I had to come up with something a little different in order to show
it off properly. Slicing 4 staves from the log and gluing them together with
the inside facing out worked beautifully to show off the colour and provided
a big enough blank to create a cylinder for the toothpick dispenser below.
This is my most successful design for one of these dispensers so far, both
aesthetically and functionally. The
lid, 'cup' and base are from Red Olive Plum.
