The Process
Here is an explanation of the process used to acquire, prepare and finalize the wood products you'll see on my other web pages.
The first thing to do is find the wood, which I do through word of mouth or just seeing trees that have been taken down or about to be removed. Every person who provides wood to me gets a hand crafted item in return at no expense just for letting me have some of the wood. My favorite wood being big leaf maple which is found abundantly here in the NW.
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Secondly I Seal the ends of the wood and store until I have time to cut into workable sizes. The ends are sealed to help prevent cracking as trees will lose moisture more quickly from the end grain and make the wood unsatisfactory for wood turning. This is what my "raw inventory" looks like. Some would call it "firewood" but I like to think of it as "treasures" looking for an escape from it's natural form. |
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| Next thing is to cut the pieces into workable "chunks" which is done by chain saw. If I still don't have time to work the wood, it gets sealed again and dated so I know how long it's been drying. Big leaf maple dries about 1 inch thickness every three months of drying time. |
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| Once I'm ready to begin working the wood, it gets cut into "round" at the band saw or if it's too big for the band saw I do as good a job as I can with the chain saw. The sample to the right was done with the chain saw, which was for a large salad bowl - about 20 inches in diameter, 10 inches deep and weighed over 40 pounds in the raw form (it was for a large family) |
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| Unless the wood has been sealed long enough to be thoroughly dry, It's still not ready to finish, so it gets turned to a rough shape, sealed, dated again and then goes into my "drying" area where it sits until I can finish it into final form. While drying and depending on the type of wood it can change shape significantly (warp); therefore, the rough turned object is left at least one inch thick so that when the wood is finally stable it will be totally round. |  |
| Here's working at the lathe doing the final turning on a large bowl. Note this picture was taken in my old shop. You'll see it has much less space than my current shop. |
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And finally here's one of the finished products. (No this isn't the big bowl being worked on above, as I didn't get a picture of it before giving to the person who had commissioned it.)
Every piece gets sanded at least to 300 grit and usually to 600 or 800 grit, which leaves a very smooth finish. Then depending on its use, gets one of the following sealers:
All of my work gets signed, dated, marked with the type of wood and if known, the location from where the wood came. |
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I hope you enjoyed the explanation of the process. As you see it can take several months from time the tree is cut to finished product, but this process results in beautiful pieces that will last generations. In fact my mother recently returned a bowl to me that I did for her in high school over 45 years ago and it's still in perfect condition.
If you have questions on the process or want to contact me use the e-mail link below.
Updated 1/2/2005
