Centerfolds

So I was putting together a portfolio last week and that meant I ended up taking a bunch of pictures. I know that I'm a wood nut, but I think tools are pretty cool, so here are some of the better pictures of some of my tools.

Get a Handle on it!

A couple days ago I noticed that I had broken the handle on my 5 1/2 plane, so I got to work on making a new one. I had always found the old handle to be a little on the small side (which is probably why it broke), so it was a great opportunity to make the plane work better by making it fit my hand better. Now I've got to replace the knob to match the handle!

I also just finished up a set of bookshelves out of poplar and walnut. Poplar is just a great wood.

Shoji

So we had our show and sale this weekend at the Globe and it all went really well.

Aside from the tables and lamps I had already built I wound up finishing a shoji screen that I was really happy with.

It also features a nice little asanoha inset.

It's a complex piece that takes quite a bit of detail work, but a nice thing to work on.

Spring Show and Sale

This weekend, May 1-3, there's a great arts event going on at the Globe Studios in Kitchener. It's their spring show and sale and a number of great artists will have works available for purchase. Jewelry, bookbinding, pottery, painting, sculpture, and photography will all be on offer along with some nice woodworking ;)

This is another spalted slab that is now a little coffee table.

The top is just a beautiful piece of wood. It's hard to capture it in a picture, so why not pop down to the Globe on the weekend!

Cleaned Up Good Wood

So I cleaned up that nice spalted maple slab and it's looking pretty fantastic. It's going to be a bench, but don't worry, those aren't the legs, it's just sitting on my workbench!

These are the the legs!

Curly maple is one of those woods that sort of makes your eyes bug out when you look at it. These pieces of wood are very curly and I think they'll make a great base to the bench. The curl comes from the tree growing in a wavy pattern that when planed causes the light to bounce off and reflect in the striped pattern you see above.

I also just got a whole bunch of poplar today. Poplar in my opinion is quite an under appreciated wood. It can vary in colour from purple to white to green and brown, and it can have streaks and grain patterns that are both unique and beautiful. It's a soft hardwood that works easily and responds well to your saw and chisels. A good wood.

Good Wood and a Little Lamp

I picked up some nice wood this afternoon and I'm excited to get working on it. First up is a big spalted maple slab. I've got it sitting on my workbench right now and it looks kind of right...

My electric thickness planer is definitely not wide enough to handle it, so it looks like I get to use my hand planes!

I also got some nice walnut slabs that will make some nice coffee tables.

I also just finished up a nice little fir table lamp. I had found this giant 12x4 piece of fir in a factory where I had my old workshop and had been lugging it around for about a year now. It's a beautiful piece of quarter sawn lumber and combined with a shoji paper screen I think it makes a nice little lamp.

Walnut Trees

I finished up my first project in my new workshop today, a curvaceous walnut lamp. I really liked working with the walnut, a wood that responded well to my planes and my saws.