Breton

«The Custody is a small ark that welcomes and protects our dearest things, it is the wrapping with which we ourselves lovingly wrap the objects, the signs of our affections, it is a small gesture in which we recognize our relationship with Creation . The Custody is the home of our memory, it is a sign of love and a sign of how we ourselves feel loved and cared for. We build these small homes with walnut (Iuglans Regia), a noble and precious wood, which originates and lives in our Pre-Alps. We work the essence following ancient methods and knowledge, a keen sensitivity and great manual skills are the basis of the constructive honesty that guides us. Even in these small containers we want to leave the mark of our vision of life."
Giuseppe Rivadossi

The wood used: National mid-mountain walnut (from Italy), worked from solid wood. Blocks assembled and dug by hand.
Mid-mountain Iuglans Regia (National Walnut) sawn in January 1994, dried for 6 months in the trunk and then slatted for 9 years in a covered but ventilated environment.

The mid-mountain walnut has a particularly beautiful and characteristic structure and color of the fiber. It is also stronger and more resistant than lowland walnut. The Italian walnut is a rare wood, since it is a very sensitive solitary tree, which does not grow in the jungle, but only in areas where it can be cared for and protected.

The wood with which Giuseppe Rivadossi's CASES are made are walnuts that are about a hundred years old.
For the economy of those who lived in the foothill area, at the beginning of the last century, the walnut was part of the productive economic cycle as a precious element of sustenance, they were trees that farmers appreciated for their characteristics of resistance and workability, but not less for the fruit they bore and therefore they were taken into consideration, cared for and protected.
The wood used for these cases therefore belongs to a civilization, the peasant one, which today has irremediably disappeared.

Processing phases (each step is carried out entirely by hand):

• The log used was felled in the appropriate season of the year, January and with a waning moon.
• After a few months the trunk was sawn into boards and immediately recomposed and left to rest for about 6 months. During this period the trunk "ferments" uniforming the color and calming the internal tensions of the wood fiber itself.
• The wood was then debarked and dried in a dry and ventilated place.
• After approximately 10 years, work can begin: the wood is then roughed up, prismatic and reconstituted as a block with special glues to be able to be carved and sculpted. These cutting and compacting operations are necessary to have wood that, despite undergoing variations due to the humidity of the environment, will not crack.
• Giuseppe Rivadossi gives the desired shape to the block of wood by digging it directly with a gouge and chisel, file and sandpaper until the desired shape and result is obtained.
• We then proceed with the finishing of the surfaces: whitening of the emerging parts; smoothing the surfaces with sepia paper; painting with an impregnating agent to close the pores of the wood; smoothing of the surfaces with increasingly fine cuttlefish papers; paint stripping; natural beeswax treatment.
• Finish: finished with wax impregnator and stripped

Crafting Tools:

• For cutting the tree: band saw.
• For sawing the trunk: band saw, circular saw, surface planer, thickness planer.
• For excavation: specially made steel gouge and chisel.