Had a small slab of juniper – didn’t know what to do with it. Decided to try my hand at clock-making (the earlier mantle clock I posted was originally made by my Dad with refinishing by me). Anyway, this is the result. Epoxy/resin finish, clock stands about 10” high. Thanks for looking.

TZH

It ain’t a bowl. It ain’t a platter. So my wife decided it would be called “table centerpiece”. Wood is juniper. Finish (so far) is two coats of Watco Danish Oil Natural. About 2 feet long by a little over a foot wide. Haven’t decided yet whether or not to fill the voids with epoxy resin and stones, moss, or something else. The last photo was taken for Thanksgiving dinner filled with croissants. Thanks for looking.

TZH

Other half of the previous bowl I posted. Same process used, different stain with a little lighter results. Started with Watco Danish Oil “Fruitwood” followed by “Dark Walnut”. Used a rope as my transition between pedestal and bowl.

Thanks for looking.

TZH

Russian Olive bowl carved with angle grinder, turquoise transition between pedestal and bowl, stain is Minwax red mahogany one application followed by two coats Watco Danish Oil (Natural) and multiple coats of spray gloss spar varnish. Bowl stands about 14 inches tall and is roughly the same in the widest parts of the rim.

Thanks again to Scott Shangraw and Juniper Canyon for your inspiration. I feel like I’m getting a little better at this, but still have a very long way to go to get to your level(s).

Thanks for looking.

Thanks, Scott Shangraw and Juniper Canyon for your inspiration. My bowls aren’t going to have the delicate carvings yours do (at least not yet – gotta get a whole lot better at this before I attempt you guy’s levels of expertise). Anyway, this is my very first completed bowl. Wood is juniper. Carved using angle and die grinders. Sanded with inflatable sanding drums. Dimensions are about 14”x14”x12” high. This is a gift to one of our Sons. He wanted the inside of the bowl to be left natural, so I braided a string of twine and used it as a transition between area that was finished and the inside which is not finished. Turned out nice, I think. Used Watco Danish Oil (Natural) to flood the piece. Then one coat of dewaxed shellac. Finally, two coats of clear gloss poly. Still learning, but gettin’ there slowly. Thanks for looking.

TZH

Started this project a long time ago – finally got it done. Ponderosa Pine “root” that looked to me like the “Kraken” from Pirates of the Caribbean movie. We have a bunch of these types of roots on our property, but finding one still pretty much intact is a challenge. Most have rotted over the years to a point of not being of any use. Nobody wants to burn these in fireplaces or woodstoves because of all the resin that accumulates in the core over time. With luck, I found this one, and this is the result. Took one coat of brush on Spar Gloss Marine varnish, and two more coats of the same varnish in spray form. Sorry about the quality of the photos – I ain’t known for my photography, that’s fer sure. Thanks for looking.

TZH

Just a couple of simple pine beetle logs I decided to turn into side tables for our deck. Finished with one coat of dewaxed shellac and 5 coats of gloss exterior spar varnish. Thinking about making a couple of round douglas fir slabs and doweling them to the top for a little more tabletop space. What do you all think? Should I do it or leave as is?

Thanks for looking.
TZH

Had some fun messing around with some of the old branches we have plenty of around here (called “slash” by those of us here in Colorado faced with chipping this stuff).

The first photo is of an “H” monogram from turquoise I made for my son, the second shows the cane (he’s too young yet to need it – maybe someday). I had a Ruana hunting knife I bought in high school that I used to clean this cane a loooonnnnngggg time ago in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. He has the knife now and I thought he’d appreciate the very first project I ever did even if I didn’t finish it until now.

The rest are photos of three other canes from our property, pine beetle branches. All are finished with one coat of straight spar varnish brushed on, one coat of dewaxed shellac, and then three more coats of a 50-50 mix of spar varnish and mineral spirits.

Thanks for looking.

TZH

Some friends of ours invited us to their cabins in the high country of Colorado late last summer (just getting ready to winterize them, so we were lucky to be able to go). There was a country store nearby where I noticed the number of burls the support columns had. Our friend mentioned he had one under his deck that his brother had sawed in half many years ago (he told me his brother got the better half), and was wondering if there was anything I could do with it. After bringing it home and looking more closely at it, I saw so much dry rot, I wasn’t sure it could be saved. Much later, after a whole bunch of grinding, filling cracks and voids with a glue/sawdust mixture, and filling the largest void with rocks covered in epoxy resin (not quite filling the void in order to make it look like water streaming over river rock), I began the finishing process. Because he wanted to have it outside in some of the harshest conditions imaginable, I decided on a spar varnish that, hopefully, will be able to withstand the elements. I also wanted a “wet” look to highlight the “stream” of rocks on the side of the piece. The first three coats of varnish went on well, but were taking a whole lot longer to cure than I was happy with (patience on finishing is not one of my stronger virtues). I did some research on the good ol’ Internet and discovered that by diluting the spar varnish with 50% mineral spirits, not only would it cure faster, but I could hand wipe it on to get more smoothness. After at least five more coats, I’m pretty happy with the results. Hope he is, too. The log is pine beetle lodgepole pine. The glass table top is an optional piece I thought he might be interested in. Thanks for looking.

TZH

Originally, this clock was a wall mount my Dad made for my first wife and me way back in 1978. He always hated it because the tacks he used for the numbers weren’t what he wanted and the color (kinda sorta what’s still on the backside – Denver Broncos orange when he did it) really set him off. Up until now, I didn’t have the heart to change anything he did to it. When he passed away, I thought I’d remake it for my Son whose Mom the clock was made for in the first place, and who passed away back in 1999. I didn’t want it to be a hanging clock anymore, so I made a base for it so it could sit on a mantle or a shelf. The base is from Ash and stained with multiple coats of black walnut Deft stain/varnish combo finished with a final 2 coats of Trewax furniture polish. The clock, itself, is a birdseye maple burl my Dad got from a friend in Oregon a long, long time ago. Out of the one burl, he was able to make two more pieces, one for each of my two sisters. It also has multiple coats of black walnut Deft stain/varnish combo finished with 2 coats of Trewax. The clock will be given to my Son on his birthday in April. Hope he likes it. The only thing left to do is add numbers (will find out what my Son wants when the clock is given to him).

Thanks for looking.
TZH

My stepson was given this toy chest by his Grandmother on his Father’s side when he was born. I’m told he would empty out the toys and hide inside as long as he was small enough to fit. Now he’s 28 years old and is getting it back as a cedar lined linen chest. Along the way, his younger half-brother (my adopted son) also used it (to its detriment, of course), and marked it up with all kinds of stickers and permanent markers. Then it spent a few years in our storage shed waiting for someone, anyone, to do something with it. For Christmas this year, I thought my stepson might appreciate his “new” toy chest.

I took the whole thing apart, first. Then everything got rough sanded by hand and by using my orbital sander. Then I resanded down to 220 grit. I put the finish coats on prior to lining it with aromatic cedar tongue and groove planks – three coats of black walnut Deft brand stain/varnish combo over pine, and the pictures show that’s as dark as I could get it.

Reassembly included re-doweling the hinged top and adding chains on each end so as not to allow the lid to flop all the way backward (the old hinge was shot after initial removal) – chains work great – followed by lining the inside with the cedar. The final touch was adding an old calcified elk horn handle from an antler-shed that was on our property when we moved in here. Had to sand off about 1/4 inch to get down to the actual antler core, but the results were worth it.

Anyway, my stepson is very excited about it – even asked me if it was strong enough to sit on. I told him he could do whatever he wanted to, but if it were me, I wouldn’t go that far.

Thanks for looking.
TZH

I call this tv stand “Treebeard” from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Our daughter snagged a 46” flat screen tv, and the stand she has it on is about ready to fall apart – scary! So, decided to make her a stand, and this is the result. Five different woods involved – the base is honey locust, the pedestals are douglas fir resin roots, the middle shelf is pine beetle kill ponderosa pine, the top is cottonwood, and the inlay is rocky mountain red juniper. All pieces are finished with 4 coats each of hand rubbed Minwax gloss poly with one coat of dewaxed shellac after the first poly coat. The top of the cottonwood piece is epoxy glaze – not really too happy with the way it came out – may need to do some more work to get it to where I want it to be. I routed out the oval in the top, filled it with quartz pieces from our property, sea shells from the shore at Old Saybrook, CT (my wife’s aunt has a cottage there), and pieces of turquoise my Mom and Dad gave me a long time ago. Filled the voids with epoxy glaze and voila. The bottom four pieces are held together by an all thread metal rod, and the top is held on by a “shelf” bracket which fits into a routed slot on the underside of the stand’s top. Works very well, hides the bracket, and holds it very tightly – just can’t lift the stand holding onto the ends of the top. Stands about 36” tall and is 48” wide at its widest. The top is almost 24” deep. Please forgive the poor photos – I ain’t no photographer, that’s for sure! Thanks for looking.

TZH

No name yet for this one (another gift for my Wife this Christmas), but the wood is honey locust with an oak dowel tenoned into the top. The inlay is epoxy resin glaze over agates. I had to carve out a pretty large area that had severely checked while drying and then fill with the agates and epoxy. Slab is about 4 inches high and about 12 inches from end to end. Finish process is the same as the other project I just posted.

Comments welcome.
Thanks for looking.
TZH

On one of my previous projects for our daughter, the base kinda sorta broke off the side table. I made a new base for the table and told my daughter the broken piece probably couldn’t be salvaged. Unbeknownst to her, I took that piece out of the firewood pile, glued it, put agate rocks over the cracks where it had broken, and covered the whole thing again in the epoxy glaze (two coats). The pole is a dowel I cut to length and tenoned into the top of the base prior to applying the glaze coats. She calls it “Joy” because the rock configuration looks like a stick figure jumping for joy.

Comments welcome.
Thanks for looking.
TZH

Made this for my Wife for Christmas this year – she gave it the name “Madonna”. Both the sculpture and the base are Ponderosa Pine affected by Pine Beetle. The sculpture was also affected by resin canker (I think – opinions on this are definitely welcome because we have a lot of this type of wood on our property and would like to know what causes this type of contortion in the wood). This was a huge branch of the tree with a hole going from bottom to top that accommodates the amber and red crystal “lamp” you see in the first photo. Light is provided by one string of white LED Christmas lights bunched up behind the crystals. The “heart” of the wood is a darker brown than the rest of the wood (that’s the part that is saturated with natural resin). Finished with one coat of dewaxed Zinnser shellac and two coats of resin glaze (definitely an experiment for me as I hadn’t done anything like this previously). Turned out pretty well and learned a LOT about how to do bigger pieces like this. Base has inlaid turquoise and quartz. Same finish process for the base as for the sculpture. Measures 27” high by 20” wide by 7” deep.

Comments welcome.
Thanks for looking.
TZH

A huge “THANK YOU” to Rocky Blue for this one. He rode his Harley to my shop and showed me how to apply epoxy by coating the slab of juniper in the photos (I’ve always been a little intimidated to even try my hand at this process – now I’m much more confident). We decided to add a little turquoise in the center to try to make it pop a little. The results were great. The photos don’t really do it justice, but my uncle from Florida really appreciated receiving it as a gift he’ll take home with him and hang on one of his walls there. Again, thank you to Rocky Blue. I owe you one.

Thanks for looking.
TZH

This piece is the final piece of a project the daughter of a friend commissioned me to create for her wedding. This one will be our gift to her and her husband to be. It’s a free-form, nature made sculpture with a hand shaped base. The hope is they will hang a couple of photos of themselves from the larger, center arch and another couple photos of their two young boys in the space under the protrusion you see in photos one and two. I finished this with two coats of gloss water based poly and two coats of Minwax gloss hand rubbed poly. The base is two coats of dewaxed shellac followed by two coats of Minwax hand rubbed poly followed by a good coat of Trewax brand wood wax. It stands about 14” high at its highest point and is about 3’ long. Thanks for looking.

TZH

Final phase of the commissioned work my friend’s daughter had me do for her wedding. This piece is made from lodgepole pine (pine beetle infestation) for the top and the base (each planed down to two inches thick). The pedestal is some kind of poplar (not sure what kind, actually). The client wanted the bark left on the poplar, and that’s what I did. It stands just under 12 inches high. Stability was a real issue with this one as I didn’t want the stand tipping over right in the middle of the wedding reception, so I made it very heavy with a wide enough base so that the only way it could topple would be if the whole table it sits on tips over. There was a lot of planing with my router planer and hand sanding to get just the right smoothness. I started with 60 grit to start with and progressively went to 400 grit for the last sanding before finishing. During finishing I did wet sanding first with 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper and finally 0000 plastic (steel wool substitute) in between coats which gave it a really smooth finish. Started with two coats of dewaxed shellac and finished with two more coats of hand rubbed gloss Minwax poly. Final finish was one coat of Trewax brand wood polish. I’m very satisfied with the way it turned out. Didn’t have a wedding cake yet to set on it for the photos, and didn’t think a pizza would do it justice. So, all you get is the piece itself. Thanks for looking.

TZH

Second phase of my friend’s daughter’s request for nine votive candles that were “out of the ordinary”. In these three, she wanted flat pieces that the votive candles would just rest on. She didn’t want me to drill holes for the candles because later on she wants to turn them into wall hangings. The third one was my attempt to fill a rotted center area with a plug and epoxy (first try at using epoxy – turned out a little more cloudy than I hoped for. I think I may have stirred it a little more vigorously than I needed to, and caused some tiny air bubbles that didn’t disperse as it cured). As an accent, I placed a quartz leaf in the epoxy. Turned out okay, not special like I hoped it would. Further experimentation is necessary. Wedding cake stand to follow.

Thanks for looking.
TZH

A friend’s daughter commissioned me to make these votive candle holders for her wedding. They will be table centerpieces at her reception. Woods are pine and juniper. Finish is one coat dewaxed shellac and two coats gloss water based poly.

The other three will be posted when I get them done. Also making a wedding cake stand and a sculpture that I’ll post when finished.

Thanks for looking.
TZH