About Anú Crafts
Anú Crafts is an Irish owned, family business situated in the beautiful parish of Glenflesk, overlooking the world-renowned mountains of Killarney and the Kerry/Cork bounds.
Two of the peaks on this beautiful range are The Paps of Anú (Irish: Dá Chích Anann, “the breasts of Anú”). Anú was believed to have been an ancient mother goddess. The mountains are seen as sacred, and to the ancients, reinforced the idea that the Earth was a motherly body.
At Anú Crafts, we source and make the majority of our beautiful unique handcrafted crafts from local windfallen and storm damaged timber, something that ties in beautifully with the ancient beliefs from the Paps of Anú looking down on us.
Killarney is home to the most beautiful native woodland areas, and our beliefs are to reproduce beauty from such trees that may have fallen, but to then give these unique native irish hardwoods new life.
Every piece is unique, and are cut, shaped, chiselled, sanded and oiled to suit their character. We try to produce many crafts that will hopefully become family heirlooms, which will be passed down from generation to generation.
So much so that people often come to us with a piece of timber of sentimental value to them, and we produce an heirloom product for them from it. We recognise and respect the beauty of wood, and we hope that this is reflected in our crafts.
As a young boy growing up, Shane spent a lot of his time down in his late dad Seán’s shed, watching him cutting timber, welding, plumbing, you name it, the many, many chores of looking after his, and his wonderful wife Betty’s family home and farm. Both Seán & Betty loved working with their hands, and it wasn’t long before their children developed this love.
Many years later, years spent crafting purely as a hobby, the birth of Shane’s beautiful god-daughter Michaela in 2013 led Shane to make a custom-made personalised dolls cradle for her playroom. When this was shared on social media by his sister Myra, numerous people fell in love with the cradles and contacted Shane to see if he would do the same for their little young ones!
Before he knew it, he was asked to make a few other products for people, before one day taking out timber slices that his late younger brother Denis cut for him many years previously, and had seasoned in his shed waiting for this day to come.
He suggested to Shane that he could make lovely door signs out of these in time to come. Little did Shane know then, but Denis was producing timber for Shane’s business years before Shane even knew it himself.
And from this, Anú Crafts Killarney was born!
Our Woodturning Process
We take great pride in producing all our beautiful hardwoods bowls from fallen/storm damaged trees all sourced within a few short km of our workshop.
Stage 1
Our process begins with processing the fresh green logs into suitably sized pieces with a chainsaw, avoiding the pith that travels through the centre of the tree.
1
Stage 2
These slabs of timber are then cut to circular blanks to go on the lathe.
2
Stage 3
At this stage, the wood is very fresh, and thus wet, so these blanks are 1st turned to the rough shape of the bowl.
3
Stage 4
The end-grains of the wet bowls are now sealed with a PVA sealer as this is the part of the bowl that dries out the quickest. By sealing the end-grain, it helps to slow down the drying process, and thus prevent the bowl from cracking.
4
Stage 5
The shavings from the wet-turning are placed in the centre of the bowl, and put in to a paper bag also containing some shavings to dry naturally. Again, the wet shavings will help to show down the drying process which would otherwise cause the bowl to crack.
5
Stage 6
The bag is marked and dated, and placed in the drying shed to season naturally for 6-8 months.
6
Stage 7
Initially after 6 months, and periodically after that, the moisture content of the bowl will be checked with a moisture meter. Once the MC reaches 8-10%, we like to bring the bowls indoors for a couple weeks to help the bowl further adjust to normal house temperatures.
7
Stage 8
At this stage, the bowl is ready for finish turning. The bowl will have distorted in shape during the drying period (the wall thickness of the initial wet-turned bowl is always left thicker (usually approx 10% of diameter of bowl) than its finish turned shape to allow for returning back to its true circular finished shape, both on the inside and outside of bowl.
8
Stage 9
At this stage, once we are happy with the final finish off the gouge, the bowl is ready for sanding. We initially start with rough grit sandpaper (80 grit).
9
Stage 10
We then work up through the grits to 400. This builds up the feel of the bowl to the final finish.
10
Stage 11
The final step in the bowl production process is to apply the finish. We use a food-safe finish on all our bowls and boards, which renders them safe to use for food products. 3-4 coats of finish will be applied.
11
Stage 12
The beautiful finished native hardwood bowl is ready to adorn your home, a wonderful piece of art that will last forever.
12
Popular Products available to purchase online
Products not found