This box is made with hickory from the local hardwood supplier. It is very unusual, and saying that it is full of character does not do it justice. It would be better to say that it has attitude. It is very difficult to work with, all of that figure comes from some serious stress build up in the tree. I will post a picture of some of the stress fractures of the cut offs with the next box.

Sorry about the blue cast, took the pictures outside today. Wanted to get these posted in a rush. When its one of the seven nice days in Indiana, you do everything outside.

Box measures 11×13ish and is finished with a base thinned out lacquer and topped with two coats of wipe on poly. The top is curly maple.

The maple board on the top of this box was a gift from a friend, (he may have given it to me because I drooled excessively on it) and he has a couple of ww2 pistols that need a proper home. Put on a pecan stain to bring out the figure on the top a bit, and that worked pretty well. As a rule I have avoided stains, but I have been seeing some pretty cool effects lately and wanted to try it out.

The sides are a very unusual hickory—it is highly figured, and comes alive as you walk past it. It ranges in color for black to light cream. The guys at the lumber yard said they haven’t seen anything like it for 25 years. Beautiful stuff.

Box size is 9×12x5ish

This my first official go at pyrography. This project was very relaxing, good thing, too, because it took me three hours to burn the top. I have been reading “The complete pyrography” by Stephen Poole. Like everything else in woodworking it takes a lot of practice and patience, but is definitely worth it.

Woods used are curly maple and wenge. The stripe in the side is put in before the board is resawn, and allows the corners to mach up perfectly.

This was one of those projects that starts with the phrase, “That’ll be fairly simple” or “Sure, easy peasy”.
My brain does not do compound mitres. Simply won’t. Regardless, I got through it without too many brain cells oozing out of my ears.

Ambrosia maple, 50” tall.

This was completely inspired by this post http://lumberjocks.com/projects/30972. He does some pretty cool stuff and I really like the imagination in his work.

Slimline pen, center band is made out of ebony. The blanks were pretty hard to drill without cracking, Turned the speed up, and only drilled 1/2” at a time to clean out the drill bit. Finished with bug bomb lacquer.

This box is made with curly ambrosia maple and cherry burl. The pull was made by a friend of mine, but I can’t for the life of me remember what its called. Sadly I can’t blame it on getting old, I have always had that problem.

I use a “holey galahad” grinding disk to shape the lid

Box size is 4×4x5ish

So I finally got around to building one of these to take pictures in. I saw several different designs online, some here and some elsewhere.

As far as I know this one is unique in that it is made from basic frames and can be broken down for storage. The top frame is 30×30, and the sides are 30×18.

The third pic shows the dowels that connect the top to the sides, and the bottom is a piece of junk luaun clamped in place spring clamps.

Now all that’s left is figuring out white balance on the camera. Might have to change the bulbs in the lights if I can’t figure out the camera.

The box in the last pic is the first picture taken in the new light box. The top is cherry burl and the sides are figured maple.

I have been working with a friend of mine who has an engraver, and he is really good refining patterns to burn into wood. He was a little worried about the consistency of the burn since the lids have camphor to them. I am really impressed how well he did with these.

The boxes are various maples, with purple heart lids, and are 6×6x4ish. Some birdseye, some figured, some curly ambrosia.

These three boxes are made from curly spalted maple cut from a tree that fell a long time ago in a friends neighbors back yard. in a couple of years it probably would have been dirt. The wood is very spongyand dificlt to work, but beautiful. Sadly I only have a little left. The top is curly oak

Boxes are 6×6x4ish, and I used kerf hinges on the lid.

This is one of the largest vases I have turned yet, and one of the coolest. I started this thinking it was going to simply be practice, because I did not expect to find any unusual grain pattern or color. What a nice surprise inside.

The gash on the side was threatening to blow the whole thing open, thank God for super glue! Decided to burn the top and the area around the gash for some contrast.

I always laugh when people ask if they can touch the stuff I make, the last is a picture of just a couple of my product testers in action.

Vase is 13 inches tall and 12 inches at its widest. sidewalls are 1/4 inch

I have been trying out different illusions lately, some that I have seen here, and others from image searches. The cafe wall illusion is subtle, at first glance everything is just fine. Then things start to get a little shifty.

The moving wave board is very poorly done, there might be more filler than wood in a couple of spots. I had way too many distractions going on while I did it (Yes, I know its dangerous to work with distractions) but lesson learned. I am going to try it again as soon as I can get an hour without distractions to cut those crazy waves. Glue up on tha waves board was a little weird too. I couldn’t get my eyes to see flat.

If you are ever looking to make your eye do some funny things, type in “black and white optical illusions” in google and have fun!

The reason I like making boxes is that I get to use a very small board to make something beautiful and functional. The sides for these are made from two boards that were 15/16 thick, one 14” and one 28”. The last picture shows them book matched and marked out, ready for miters.

These three boxes are to be presented as gifts to three people in my local woodworking club for giving so much of their time teaching beginner woodworkers how turn and be safe.

If you ever have any interest in making a box, check out “Tauntons Basic Boxmaking” DVD. I got mine from the local library, and I think I watched it five times or so in the last couple of years. It really is full of information that is easy to understand.

These are made from figured maple and curly oak. 6×6x4

What a blast! Spent seven days building my favorite things…. Boxes boxes and more boxes. I had a pretty big pile of beautiful scraps laying around, and decided I ws going to start working my way through them . Not quite finished bingeing yet, but when I am I will get up a proper posting of some of my favorites.. Until then, I am back to the garage to make some more dust bugers.

Wood is mysterious. When opening up a board, it is hard to tell what is inside. Burls more so than any other type.Sometimes there will be a void, once I found a big softball sized chunk of dirt inside of one.

These bowls are made more mysterious in the fact that I can’t identify it. could be catalpa, butternut, elm, etc.. whatever it is, it had a lot of beauty trapped inside of it.

I also have a few small slabs drying under the bench for box tops…. can’t wait!

First bowl is 4 tall and 7 across, 2nd and 3rd are 5 tall and 7 across. Hope you enjoy.

My wife couldn’t figure out what to get her brother for Christmas. Seemed easy enough to me. Crown royal and a box to store it in.

Box is made from curly oak and curly maple, and the insert is made from 2” foam board, and is not attached so that he can remove it and use the box any way he wants. Size is 10×10 by 5ish, and I used three kerf hinges for the lid because of the extra weight, shown in pic 5.

This little box is made with curly maple and cherry crotchwood. There are three big curls on this board, and the picture just doesn’t do them justice. The bottom piece may end up splitting, I noticed some checking in one of the corners after finishing. Guess I will have to set it aside and see what happens.

This is a large hollow form made with spalted maple. It is 15 inces tall and ten across the top. This piece had a couple of spots that the wood was so punky that I could dig chunks out with my fingernails. Rough turned and then soaked with laquer thinned out 50 % to help stabilize it. It absorbed nearly a quart before it was saturated. These are especially dangerous to turn. To get a good cot, the lathe needs to be turned up 1200 rpms, and the inconsistency in density can sometimes take hours of work and explode them into mulch for the garden. It was hollowed out with a shop made laser guided boring bar.

Never realized till now how flat awesome that sounds…. shop made laser guided boring bar. I will have to get a picture of it next time I get it out.

The burl on this box is one of those boards left on the workbench simply to admire and wonder what other piece of wood will come along and match with it. Finally got some clean hyper curly maple that had a lot of its own beauty, but not so much as to take away from the cherry. As with most burls, it had some voids that appeared when sanding, so I decided to fill it with some turquoise. This is a tricky little process that involves crushing the chips down to a usable size, and then getting them set in with a two part epoxy. Don’t ever buy the five minute set stuff….it was more like three, and doesn’t allow enough time to get everything just right. Probably try the ten minute next time. Box is 9×5x4ish.

This box is maple crotch wood with an ambrosia maple top. I buy most of my lumber from a local lumberyard, and they have had a recent run of maple. It takes a bit of digging, but I have been able to find some beautifully unusual maple lately in the stacks.

If you are anywhere near NE Indiana, try Wibles Lumber. They have some really good stuff.

The box is 4 tall and 5×9. The lid is shaped with a medium grit curved top Holy Galahad grinding disk on a 4 1/2 inch angle grinder.

These boards are done in maple, walnut, and cherry. Found a good write up on how to do these. http://lumberjocks.com/poroskywood/blog/10833

They are pretty slick to make, and in making one, you end up with two. One to keep, one to give away. The only thing I could add is start with fairly thick boards, if possible.