A love for woodcraft

David Rahtz

Sydney tree-changer, and retired Psychotherapist David Rahtz has discovered a new passion in woodworking since moving to Orange, but he’s doing it in his own unique way.

“I can't stand making furniture; I hate the stuff!” says David Rahtz, 68, sitting surrounded by around a dozen of his wildly fantastic wooden creations.

David’s work as diverse as it is difficult to describe: from three-legged vases, to small, fantastical castles and fairy tale towers — it is not the woodworking you typically imagine emerging from your local Men’s Shed.

“So at the shed I'm ‘the guy who has funny dreams’ is how they put it,” says David. “Most of it is based on what I used to sketch as a kid. I used to draw stuff like this with little towers and things — I call them ‘troll villages.’”

While not 100 per cent sure of just what has inspired his imaginings, David lists childhood influences like Tolkien, CS Lewis and Finnish author Tove Jansson.

“Tove Janssen had some books called the Moomin troll series and I think she was one of my early inspirations and later on there was a TV series called Richard Scarry's Busy world… but I don't really know where else it came from, I just like I love drawing interlocking spirals and I always like little houses with the pointy tops,” he says.

“With this stuff, I don't do any designs, I don't plan them. I just let the wood tell me what it wants to be.”

And what do David’s fellow Men’s Shed members think of his work?

“They are a bit puzzled. They tend to get involved in fairly traditional projects like making chess boards and breadboards and boxes and restoring the old furniture, but I think it is good just to give people something new to think about, because we get so stuck in our ways — and the older you get the more you do — but I suppose I’ve enjoyed being the resident eccentric.”

A keen traveller, David left this home in Bristol, England to see the world. At 26, he landed in Australia and just never left. A motor mechanic by training, David’s varied career led him to become a church pastor, home handyman and psychotherapist among other things.

But retiring and moving to Orange was a whole different challenge, he said.

“I think, like a lot of blokes, I was afraid of getting old and not knowing what to do,” he said.

 “Because I'd kind of dropped three careers really; I was a pastor, I was a counsellor, I was a mechanic a few other things along the way… I wanted to learn to grow old realistically and I thought I've got to hang around with older men to learn how to do that. Then the other thing I wanted to do was join a men’s shed. I went there a long there and I've been going ever since —I love it!”

The lathe in particular has become David’s obsession. Two hours after getting a fellow Men’s Shed member to teach him, he was hooked!

“Over the last three years I've basically built a home workshop. I've got my own lathe and it's just wonderful; the lathe is just magic and whenever I get a bit stressed, I stick a block of wood in and make sawdust!”

David said he has now succumbed to the four sides of the woodworking hobby: collecting wood, collecting tools, rearranging your workspace and the actual making things part.

“I've got 100 power tools out there and I realised I just like collecting tools! I just love all this gear and I do what they call the ‘Gumtree Shuffle.’ I'll find a machine I haven't got on Gumtree and say to my wife, ‘how do you fancy a trip to Canberra?’ And she'll say, ‘OK, what are we buying now?’” laughed David, who sells a few of his pieces, but is happy to work at his own pace.

“I've sold a few bits and made a couple of pieces on commission — mainly treehouses for kids’ birthdays with little slippery dips and cranes and that stuff,” he said.

“But the thought of having to produce under pressure and my creativity nose dives. I don't need the anxiety of working to deadlines or coming up with ideas… being retired you don't have to produce and I like the low anxiety aspect of it; I can walk away from it and go play table tennis, go for a ride,  sit and read a book, so  I can shut the door and I don't have to do anything, which is good!

“I think there is no doubt doing the Men’s Shed has literally kept me sane through the disruption of retirement. And I talk to a lot of guys about retirement and I think it is the same story: if you immerse yourself in a hobby and you belong to a community, then they are the two pillars. I've done both purposefully and it has been one of the best decisions I've made.”