A UNIQUE lectern made of a used whisky barrel has been donated to a Wee County hall to support events taking place.
Members at Wee County Men’s Shed, located in Devonside, have created the one-of-a-kind piece of furniture for the Devonvale Hall after one of the committee made an appeal directly.
Already put to good use, the lectern was handed over in August and allows the Clacks venue to support more events such as weddings and funerals.
With a free creative licence, Wee County Men’s Shed’s Scott Cameron got to work on the project at the group’s Alexandra Street base, known as the “Howff”.
The gents there used a whisky barrel to create the design, resembling a thistle.
Scott, a founding member of the shed and current liaison officer, said: “We do get staves now and again from Diageo and we’ve got two coopers working in the place as well, they make quite a bit of stuff from whisky barrels.
“I decided I’d make something totally different, something that resembles a thistle, but I didn’t want it to look entirely like a barrel.”
Scott, who was chairman of the shed until recently, took the middle stave of the barrel before making wedge cuts to fan it out at the top to resemble the national flower of Scotland.
The piece, which will also soon see a carving of a thistle fitted at the front, pays tribute to Scotland and homage to the area’s distilleries past and present.
The result speaks for itself with Scott, a joiner by trade, adding: “It really was an interesting project, one I enjoyed the most.
“Wood carving is my hobby, I love working with oak but to do something with whisky barrels was even better.”
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Scott was aided in the effort by Howard Fox, who worked hard to scrape and sand all the charcoal off the staves on the inside.
Scott said the Devonvale Hall committee were delighted with the result and the lectern has already been used for a wedding before the official handover.
“I don’t think there’s another one in Scotland like that”, Scott added.
“There’s a good chance there’ll be one manufactured in Australia and one in New Zealand.
“A New Zealand member asked for details on it from a shed, it will possibly be passed onto a friend of his in Australia who do work on whisky barrels.”
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