Here’s a Southwest style pot that I made a couple of days ago. It is made of spalted Sugar Maple and it’s about 9 inches in diameter at it’s widest and about 6 inches tall.

This is a beautifully figured piece of spalted wood that could only have been accentuated with a bit of turquoise.

I finished it with just one coat of tung oil and then sprayed it with a matte finish to keep its natural look.

The grain and lines created by the spalting are quite mesmerizing. I find it hard to walk by this piece without picking it up and taking a closer look.

Here’s some more photos:

Continue reading 'Spalted Maple Pot With Turquoise'

Here’s a kitchen island that my wife and I completed (finally!) early last year. It is made of Pine and has a thick Birch top. It measures approximately 36″ long by 24 inches wide and 34 inches tall. The base has been painted and the natural top has a polyurethane finish. It also features Southwest style icons on all sides of the base.

This has been a project that was a long time in the making. The wood that was used to make it was reclaimed from other pieces of furniture that somehow found its way back to us.

The four beautiful Maple legs and the Birch top came from an old table that came with our previous home when we bought it almost 25 years ago. We used it as a computer table for several years and then it went on to be used as same at our niece’s home. Years later it returned to us and with no one else wanting it we hung onto it. After visiting Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2009 for the 2009 AAW Symposium we were inspired to use the table in a Southwest style kitchen island for our home.

Here’s a photo of the pieces that we used:

Continue reading 'Kitchen Island From Reclaimed Wood'

Here are a couple of small woodturned boxes made from African Blackwood. The larger one is about 3″ tall and 2 1/4″ in diameter. The smaller one is about 2″ tall and 2 1/2″ in diameter. As you can see, they both have been textured quite a bit.

The taller box has been textured with staggered ‘brick’ to make its cylindrical shape almost castle-like, perhaps a turret .

The smaller box, with it’s fez shape, seemed more suited to be mostly textured with a few bands of plain wood left for contrast.

Both of them have been finished only by polishing and buffed with wax creating a brilliant shine.

Here’s some more photos:

Continue reading 'African Blackwood Boxes'

Here’s a hollow form made of spalted Sugar Maple that I finished recently. It was turned while still wet and since it has been finished it has slowly taken on an expected slight ovoid shape, giving it a unique appearance.

It is 7 1/2″ by 4 1/2″ and finished with tung oil. The hole in the top is 7/8″ and the wall thickness was turned to around 3/16 of an inch which gives the surprise of lightness when lifted. The base was stained black.

This was my first attempt with my new 5/8″ hollowing tools from Trent Bosch, which I’m obviously quite impressed with.

Here’s a few more photos:

Continue reading 'A Spalted Maple Hollow Form'