As a child when his mother couldn’t raise him with a whistle, she’d check out the farm workshop and there would be Pete, along with his brother Tim, constructing boats out of the off-cuts of farm carpentry – bits of old post & battens, cuts from wooden gates, small bits of framing timber, varied lengths and widths of dowel…. Hammer and chisel in hand and infinite patience, he’d put his meccano set to shame with what he could do. Pete hasn’t changed. Only got better. And has even built a replica boat in the last few months.
Each item Peter makes is unique. All are hand-crafted from the finest woods, using many New Zealand native timbers such as kauri, black maire, matai, rewarewa and puriri among other more traditional such as oak and maple, in his workshop in Clive. He makes some items (such as boxes) in batches, but each is manually sawn, assembled, and oiled.