Finished off 7 more maple spoons($15) in the morning. The afternoon was spent changing oil and radiator fluid in the truck also replacing soffit on the carport(something I started last year). Been using the excuse "have to go to work in the shop" a little to much. Now the "DO LIST" is rather large.
The top spoon has had 2 coats of oil whereas the bottom has nothing. These would make a nice pair of salad tongs if I cut grooves in the lefty bottom one.

Amazing look. This is the maple carved up on Monday(12x13x6.25 $140) last week. It took forever to create this shape. Creating free form shapes is rather straight forward, but throw in a specific constraint to the shape and you have to take it slow to get right.
I finally brought it home this Saturday after finishing the flooring job where I had left it stored in a bag. I'll have to do that more often. Still having a lot of moisture in the wood that good old fungus started to feed darkening the wood fiber in between the the harder feeding grains. If it wasn't for bagging, the bowl would have stayed creamy white loosing all the grain patterns. Click on the picture for a closer look at the details of the patterns.



Lillie has been a little to chunky lately. I decided to give her a different look this time. She is now very intimidating to the neighbor hood dogs.

Why is it I order a tool part after I need it. It took an 1.5 hours to change out an old band saw blade and then sharpen it. If only I had ordered new blades last week like I did yesterday. I could have saved an hour. Maintenance can suck up so much time. Also spent an hour taking apart and changing a sanding drum that gets hours of use a day(just about). Dismantling and lubing up bearings can be messy. It's a good thing to have plenty of saw dust on hand to wipe off the grease.


I normally use a 3/8 10T(3/8 means the width of the blade and the T stands for the number of teeth per inch) for resawing and tighter radius cuts(2 1/2) like for spoons. The only other decent blade was a 1/2 6T(the less teeth you have the rougher and faster the cut). The spoons here have a larger spoon head than what I usually make because of the 3 1/2 radius from the 1/2 blade. New maple has such a nice light creamy color. I've been asked many times if it will stain from use with tomato sauce. My experience has been a slight darkening over time. Not so much red though. Eventually the spoon head gets a nice patina that seasons the spoon for toughness. The only other foods would be berries(blue, straw, purple grapes etc.).

Looking forward to First Friday at Quirk Gallery 311 Broad April 3rd.. It should be a warm no rain night. We'll keep an eye on the weather and hope for the best.

OK. Here is what the teak looks like in spoon($15) and coffee scoop($10) form.
I would show the 3 maple bowls made in the morning but they are in a bag soaked down with water and old shavings from outside to encourage spalting. They should be ready to finish in a few months if all goes well.

More swinging of the hammer on Saturday. Putting down some real floor(3/4" teak random length) with my best friend Gary. All went well mainly because we warned each other that this has to be done quick and efficiently and yes we will humiliate the other when a mistake is made. We know how to push each others buttons. I think I may have over done it trying to get job done fast. Moving boxes of flooring, sorting out the 3 different lengths, laying out for Gary to nail and cutting the end pieces. Gary is quite the nailer so it was hustle, hustle. When I woke up Sunday morn my legs did not seem to want to move all that well and the buttocks were so sore that sitting really hurt. Carved up a beauty yesterday morn. A large maple salad bowl 12x12x6.5 $140 in an octagon shape. Later that afternoon I went back to flooring and brought the bowl for show and tell. I would have taken a picture this morning butt left the bowl there(I have a good memory, but always forget to use it). My butt still hurts.

More Maple. Almost looks like tiger print. The top 2 are 9x5.5x2 $25. The larger is 11x8x2 $50. Tried something different on these. The sides have a very low angle taper creating a plate like look with the larger piece.



Here's the maple from next door. There's about 35 bowls in that load there.








Thursday about 7:00 a truck backed into the driveway a dumped 3 large logs of walnut, cherry and persimmon. It took 1.5 hours cutting them up and moving them behind the shop. It was a stain on the garden cart holding a 300 lb. load 7 times.
This shot is of the persimmon and cherry. The persimmon is to the right and the cherry in the middle. To the left is cedar received in August.


To the left is the walnut. This load alone will keep me busy for a long time. Isn't it nice to get wood dropped in your yard.

Maple outer cut. The bowl at the bottom is15x5x1.25 $40. The top one is 17x5x1.25 $40. Being that this maple is so fresh it actually takes longer to finish it. Going through the process of carving this stuff my shirt gets soaked by the wood chips and dust. Sandpaper clogs very quickly and needs to be cleaned often meaning more time. It may take only a minute to clean but after 15 cleanings, well you know know what's next. Any which way but slow. Time means money.

3 More yesterday morn and the afternoon was spent working on a double sided banner with stand for the Cross Roads Art Center Market every Thursday from 12 to 6.
5 of the 6 bowls are starting to check which means more time involved bagging them. Fortunately they are the right size for a Walmart bag.
The hickory bowl that was carved 3 weeks ago is looking better. The checks got as wide as 1/16 and have closed up. Aaron, your going to love that bowl.


Our little dog Lillie has turned 5 today(said, per the Queens request). She is a good dog when not barking, which is about half her life.

It was a good productive day for a Monday. Finished off these three maple bowls in the morning. The top 2 are 16x4.25x2 ($40 each) what we call baguette bowls. The other is 9x4x2 $25.



This persimmon is full of character now. I picked it up in July last year from Mechanicsville. The worms and fungus(causing spalting, the black streaking)have done a marvelous job at creating an awesome pattern. They are roughly 10x6x3 though the ends sweep up to 5($40 each). The rounder one is 7 wide. After they have cured up and absorbed as much oil as they will I'll toss them in the oven at 275 for an hour to drive out the last of the worms.

I was fortunate to catch my neighbor cutting up a maple tree that went down a few weeks ago. This is their bowl in trade for the tree. The size and cost for this type of bowl is 16x9x2.25 $70. It won't take long for the rest of the wood to spalt and darken, but for the next few weeks the bowls will be a nice light creamy color. Kim your bowl will be ready in about a week.







This piece is a 9x4x2 and $25. The sides are nice and thin around an 1/8 of an inch. It's a center cut with the bottom being the very heart of the tree. The only problem with the heart is that it is very unstable and will check or crack through it's curing stage. So far it has a small crack along the dark brown line in the lower right of the bowl.

I met a fellow vendor last Thursday at Cross Roads. She makes soap from scratch in many different scents. She talked to me about an ash tree that had died on her property and also had an enormous bee hive in it. Here is her idea of what she wanted from the tree. The mortar as you see is a hexagon like what the bees create in their honey combs.





This mortar and pestle is cherry. It is smaller then others I have done. It's cost is $40.












Walnut is so pretty. You can see how the grain of these 2 matches. The cost is $50 each.















Last picture. The eating spoon($10). Carved up for a walnut bowl I gave to a friend for his birthday.

Has anybody seen my week. It seems I have lost an entire week. If anybody finds 3/9 - 3/12 and it has my name on it, please return it. Thank you.

Saturday: worked on irrigation pump at Victory Farms(Charlies).
Sunday: finally finished the seat I started last month. For fun, built a 7' trebuchet. Google it.
Monday: back to Victory Farms to work on irrigation pump.
Tuesday: finished first pump project. Working on the next pump and shed roof project.
Wednesday: organize and clean the shop, started 2 medium sized walnut bowls and finished an eating spoon. At 4:30 had to take the trebuchet over to Charlies To throw 10 oz. tennis ball sized projectiles 100'. What a fun waste of time.
Thursday: almost finished the walnut bowls before going to Crossroads Art Center show at10:00. What a fun waste of time.
Today: who knows? Maybe get into some new maple from the neighbors house next door.

So out of a small diameter 16" long log I'll cut four slabs. That's 2 outer and 2 center. These(8x5.5x2$30 and 7x5.5x2$30) came from the outer cut. The 2 from yesterday were center cut.
The market opens today!!!!
We'll see you at Crossroads Art Center every Thursday from 12 noon to 6pm. There will be a good variety of foods and art.

I'll be making more of this size bowl(9x8x2.5 $50). It's just right a s a man bowl(change,phone,glasses,pocket knife and what ever else) or for serving veggies.














These magnolias would make great cereal bowls(8x6x2 $30).

More magnolia. These are 16x6x2 $60 each. There are a few logs still laying around behind the shop darkening up for a beautiful coloring effect. The piece at the bottom is the center cut, very interesting. When this stuff is fresh it is all creamy tan as the piece at the top shows.

Wahoo. What a snow storm. E-mailed someone earlier that my commute to the shop will take twice as long about 30 seconds. You can see the edge of the shop in the upper right corner.




Two walnut(6x4x2 $25each) and a magnolia(9x6x2 $30) bowls. Carved up the magnolia yesterday for fun after cutting slabs from 2 logs. I'm glad I cut them before the snow. Now I can carve 8 bowls for the next few days in the comfort of a warm cozy shop instead of moving snow just to find the logs.