About Eclipse

Founded by Ross and Julie Triffit, Eclipse Handcrafted Furniture have been manufacturing quality, solid timber furniture for in excess of 30 years. For most of that time Eclipse have specialised in the use of unique indigenous hardwood timbers to handcraft unique pieces of furniture. The timbers used to create these pieces are mostly salvaged timber from dead trees on private properties or recycled timber from old buildings. These hardwood timbers reflect the harsh Australian environment that the tree has been exposed to,  in some cases easily for over two to three hundred years.

'We don't destroy Mother Nature's beautiful creation; we give it the gift of immortality'.

The timber in each Eclipse dining table has its own signature and story to tell.  Ross and Julie love the fact that most of the timber used to make for example a statement piece dining table would otherwise be wasted in some way.  The timber is salvaged from old dead trees or from old buildings and turned it into a treasured piece of furniture that will be around for literally generations. These beautiful and unique timbers are part of our natural heritage and they deserve to be preserved.
     
EXPERIENCE:
       
Ross and Juilie have over thirty years experience in the furniture industry. Adopting a small scale 'boutique' approach to furniture production and retail, Ross and Juilie aim to provide customers with an individual and tailored service. Eclipse employs nine craftsmen at different levels in their Wagga Wagga based factory. Each craftsman is dedicated and passionate in the work they do and they strive to uphold the Eclipse ethos.
    
Exposing Nature's Secrets.
      
Ross's affinity with the beauty inherent in Australian Eucalypt Timbers started when he was growing up on a farm chopping up firewood. He observed the different colours, textures and densities within different types of eucalypts. Then his passion for Eucalypt timbers grew rapidly when his business started using some recycled hardwood to make furniture when they started to graduate from using softer timbers which back in the late eighties was mainly recycled Baltic and Hoop pine as well as old Oregon..  
One of Ross's other earlier influences came from his late Grandmother's hobby of lapidary (the art of polishing stones).
'It was fascinating seeing a very ordinary looking stone go through the polishing process and being absolutely gob smacked when it came out. It was amazing to see the beautiful colours and patterns in what was once just an ordinary stone and this is very similar to what we do at Eclipse but with timber.
The exterior of most of the naturally felled tree's we use is often seen as being drab and uninteresting but once the timber is dressed and polished up, an amazing arrays of colour and intricate patterns appear. Each piece of timber is unique just like the stones that his grandmother used to polish up. "We aim to expose this beauty, turning a once discarded dead tree into a practical functional and high value item that can be used and admired for generations."
                      
Eclipse Handcrafted Furniture's creations reveal the immense variations that are inherent in Australian hardwoods, many having lots of beautiful 'natural features' such as gum veins, sap pockets and many other very interesting things that makes the piece being created intrinsically individual.
Dining tables especially, become a fantastic showcase for these beautiful timbers and all their individual and unique characteristics. Finishing most dining tables the natural way with an oil obviously compliments the natural look in the wood.  In creating tables this way Ross recognises a connection with  the ancient Japanese concept of Wabi Sabi - the art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature. 
  
Eclipse designs are mostly underplayed and modest allowing the person browsing in the showroom to discover the undeclared beauty within each piece.  
Eclipse's main showroom is in the Alexandria area in Sydney.   Nikki, Aldo and Ross and Julies's son Marc run the Sydney showroom with Ross and Julie mostly running the factory in Wagga but are frequently in the showroom on weekends.