My Phoenix

This Phoenix is perhaps the most colorful project I have made to date due to the wood used.He consists of Walnut, Black Walnut, Maple, Red Maple, Cedar and Aromatic Cedar. He has two pieces of my fathers Pomegranite Tree along with a couple pieces of his Lemon Tree homegrown in La Mirada California! There is also Mahogony in this and Cherry Wood . I actually have just one piece of what is called Blood wood and also a tiny piece of what is known as Lace wood which is in his eye section. Lace wood is gorgeous wood,very expensive as it comes from some part of the world I know I will never get to go too. Actually I do need to read up on this particular wood so I am not so uninformed. We bought a 4 foot piece of it last summer and my plan is to make a Dragon out of it as it looks to have “spots or scales” on it! It is an extremely hard wood and I know I will be busting a few scroll saw and bandsaw blades on it! Also the phoenix’s right wing,the top of that is what I call the heart or center of the wood (this piece being pine) but is also known as pith. I made this a year or longer ago and in retrospect due to the kind of wood I used I am lucky as it seems to be holding it’s own and not shrinking up on me as some wood is hardwood and some not and the Pomegranite and Lemon Tree pieces are actually green pieces (alive) that needed to be trimmed down due to a wind storm and I wasn’t sure how long to dry them out. It looks like I did okay though I do not imagine anything shrinking up on me now.
The reason I write Aromatic Cedar and Cedar is when we do go out and buy wood we like to go down to a place a friend turned us on to called “Austin’s Hardwoods” in Santa Ana ,California. It is there that I noticed the wood was labeled like that. I will have to read up on this as well but I am sure the wood is of differant grades and of course the Aromatic Cedar is self explanatory and does it smell sooooo good. This little ol’ phoenix has over 80 pieces and the pattern comes out of Scroller LTD. magazine Winter 2005. I personally had to tweak the pattern a little bit due to the tools I had at the time.

-- Allison, Northeastern Ca. Remember, Amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic!