The wooden whisperer

Rick grew up in an environment of craftsmen, in Dreumel in the Netherlands. His father was a brick-layer, his uncle had a wood sawmill. Here Rick discovered his love for wood. But he wanted to become a bricklayer like his father, but fortunately his father saw in him another talent at a young age: he became a carpenter!

In the beginning he worked in several small businesses. To continue his studies he went to Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Here he gradually specialised bit by bit in the woodrestoration of old buildings. He worked for many years in this area and acquired an enormous amount of knowledge about wood, whose properties and treatment. This also lead to the decision to use very old wood from local, dutch places.

In 2002 Rick founded his own carpentry workshop for furniture.  The idea to start producing boards came from his aunt, who wanted a special cutting board and asked him to make it for her.  Instead of one board, Rick made twelve beautiful cherrywood boards, which were very popular within family and friends. The spark was ignited. In 2016 he specialises in the production of cutting and serving boards. His passion for the wood, his understanding of the inner values of each log that needs to be brought out, he can really live out.

Handmade unique specimens

The boards are always cut and processed in a way that the direction of growth of the wood, its natural twists and knots are taken into account in the board shape. This gives the boards a high stability and durability. Each board is largely natural in its shape and therefore unique. There are one, sometimes two irregular hem edges. Where these are placed is always determined by the wood itself and as mentioned above: Rick observes this „wood language“. Handles and holes and their size and shape, however, are Rick‘s signature, but are always designed according to the possibilities of the respective piece of wood.

Solid wood boards

Rick‘s boards are solid wood boards, always cut from one piece and not glued. The surface remains untreated and hereby shows its full beauty and special grain. Small cracks or inclusions in the boards are life-marks that the tree has experienced and helped to bear through its age. They are part of these boards, as they are exceptional contemporary witnesses and unique products of nature.

Oak 66 only uses the wood of native trees grown in the Netherlands that are over 100 years old. Rick inspects the trees himself, stores them himself to give them the peace of mind they need and also takes them personally to his carpentry workshop for processing. The assortment of woods covers cherry, iced beech, elm, ash, walnut, oak, copper beech and plane tree.

We are very pleased about the cooperation with this extraordinary wood expert. Wood is the second most important competence of „Windmühlenmesser“, directly after the blades. It could not have been more appropriate, so to speak. Therefore, we put our windmill as a reference of our recommendation on the back of each board.

Oak 66
„Oak 66“ is the name of the carpentry workshop of Rick de Rijk. Oak, the oak, stands for clarity, strength and resilience - a description of Rick‘s appearance and personality that is also quite accurate. The number 66 stands for his year of birth, 1966.