http://www.woodreview.com.au 67PROFILEB
ryan Cush, 37 is a designer and maker of furniture whose earlier
career as an architect is reflected in the structural and built nature
of his designs. He doesn’t rely on the traditional hallmarks of fine
woodworking – dovetails, veneer layups, frame and panel constructions- but the feel and ethic is all about quality and handcrafted.
When it comes to using Australian native species, this Irish-born maker is all
about local. ‘A lot of designers specify American timbers on every job...but I
like to offer local species. The only piece of foreign timber I’ve ever cut in this
workshop is a piece of oregon to make a workbench,’ said Bryan. ‘Blackbutt
is my alternative for American oak. You can soap wash it if you want to get it
a bit paler. If you oil it, it goes caramel and beautiful.’ Mostly though Bryan
uses spotted gum and Victorian ash eucalypts, but ironwood, redgum and
jarrah come into the workshop as well.A remote location for a woodworking shop within far sight of Melbourne’s
CBD and the urban creep of apartment blocks seems like a contradiction.
And yet in the 1800s Jack’s Magazine was just that, a place far enough out
of town to store gunpowder and munitions that were manufactured nearby2
- Bryan Cush designs and makes furniture under
the name Sawdust Bureau.Photo: Northside Studio - The workshop is situated in a heritage site that
overlooks a canal and the grassy Maribyrnong
floodplain. Photo: Michael Firus