As you traverse the great plains of life you acquire small mementos along the journey. These little tokens are kept to remind you of the blissful times. As they accumulate you realize that you require a special place for them to be stored, a place for safe-keeping, a place that they are easily accessed, to remember or to share their tales.

To this end I recently created ‘Gentle Safari’, a small box made out of African Zebrawood and Ebony.

It features a drop-in ebony lid that has been accented with three, almost parallel, Zebrawood strips that gives the sense that they will meet at some point in the distance. The bottom is also accented with a strip of ebony. The ebony base raises the piece almost 3/8 of an inch, elevating it with a hint of shadow. The sides are African Zebrawood.

It stands almost 3″ tall and is 4 1/2″ square. It is finished with wipe-on poly and lightly sanded between each coat to give it a velvety touch.

Here are some more photos:

Continue reading 'African Zebrawood And Ebony Box'

I lucked into a wonderful windfall of wood recently! A woodturning friend of mine decided to retire and was emptying out his wood shop and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

I was lucky to pick up a couple of hundred bowl blanks, burls and slabs of Maple, Birch and Ash. Quite a few of them have great features such as fiddleback, curl and birdseye. There is also some spalted varieties in the mix. The bulk of the blanks are Ash.

Most of the wood has been drying since 1992 with the newest having been drying since 2002!

I was also lucky enough to pick up about 100 board feet or more of curly, birdseye and fiddleback maple boards and some 200 year old walnut boards, plus three Ash and Birch laminated table tops. The 200 year old Walnut was saved from an old downtown home demolition at one time. I acquired two 8 foot long banisters which will have to be milled and some that has already been milled.

Here are some photos of this bigga-load-a-wood (Warning! Drool plays havoc on keyboards! LOL!):

Continue reading 'A Wonderful Windfall Of Wood'

Well, I finally got an end grain cutting board made in the style demonstrated by The Wood Whisperer, Marc Spagnuolo. By using different types of wood cut in various widths this style creates a very pleasing pattern when completed.

I chose to use Maple and Cherry for this board. Though the contrast is more subtle than using some woods it turned out quite nice. The size of the board is 13.5″ X 11″ X 1″ and it is finished with a several coats of food-grade mineral oil and then buffed to a dull sheen.

I no doubt will be making more of these since the final product has been so well received. The choice of contrasting wood varieties available gives the opportunity for each one to be different. As well, there are other changes that can be done to make them unique. For example, with this one I added Maple ends to the board to give it bit of a different look.

Here are a couple of more photos showing different views of this board:

Continue reading 'A Spagnuolo-Style Cutting Board'

In addition to the Crosscut Sleds I also had to make a jig to cut the slots for the splines on the Maple And Padauk Box that I made. This is basically a cradle that holds your workpiece at a 45 degree angle to the tablesaw blade.

This was pretty simple and quick to build. It is just two pieces of 1″ X 4″ cut with 45 degree ends and then screwed to a piece of plywood so that two ends meet and are level with the bottom of the plywood.

To use it’s just a matter of setting your tablesaw fence to the depth that you want the slot cut and then cradle your workpiece in the jig and run it through the saw while keeping the back of the jig against the fence.

You can use this jig to put splines in boxes and picture frames.

Back to the shop…