Hewlett-Packard 可能并不以生产世界级的木工而闻名，但他们至少可以部分归功于法国人 Pascal Oudet，他是一名电气工程师，他的职业生涯始于 1998 年为 HP 设计计算机主板。Oudet 发现这份工作是去当地一家大型木工店。当他的许多同事在业余时间攀登阿尔卑斯山时，Oudet 开始将越来越多的空闲时间花在做木工上。几年后，他对车床如此着迷，以至于他将电气工程工作缩减为兼职，以便将更多时间用于车削。

Oudet 在木材上所做的事情可能不像纳米技术那样神秘，但它可能会使木工变得轻信。从绿色欧洲橡木的链锯大块开始，Oudet 加工出极薄的圆盘——直径约三英尺——以及壁厚仅为 2 毫米（略大于 1/16 英寸）的容器和管状件。

Oudet 的作品揭示了橡木的解剖结构。通过将它们变得如此薄，然后对其进行喷砂处理，直到他擦掉较软的春季年轮，他创造了仅由木材较硬的夏季年轮和髓质射线组成的碎片。

Hewlett-Packard may not be known for producing world-class woodworkers, but they can claim at least partial credit for Frenchman Pascal Oudet, an electrical engineer who began his career designing computer motherboards for H-P in 1998. Oudet discovered that one of the perks of the job was access to a large, local woodshop. While many of his colleagues were climbing the Alps in their off-hours, Oudet began spending more and more of his free time doing woodwork. A few years down the road he was so hooked on the lathe that he scaled back his electrical engineering job to part time so he could devote more time to turning.

What Oudet has gone on to do in wood may not be as mysterious as nanotechnology, but it may strain a woodworker’s credulity. Starting with chainsawn hunks of green European oak, Oudet turns wafer-thin disks-some three feet in diameter-and vessels and tubular pieces with walls just 2mm (a little more than 1/16 in.) thick.

Oudet’s pieces reveal the anatomy of the oak. By turning them so thin and then sandblasting them until he has scoured away the softer spring growth rings, he creates pieces composed solely of the wood’s harder summer growth rings and medullary rays.