Safety is job one.

Be it human or canine, shop safety is always important! Unless your a Guinea pig.....I'd love to feed those things through the planer....

Stuffed Bear

Cut this one out today since it wasnt my weekend. Almost done except for the glue-up and the finish. This was made for one of Lilly's teachers who has a niece on the the way. The woods in this one are Paduk, Cedar, Maple, and walnut.


The nose, eyes, and letters in the block were inlayed.

Cars Themed Intarsia Piece, Finished

Finished the cars themed piece.  I could have probably added more, but for an infants room, I didnt want it to be cluttered.

All in all took me about 6 hours of work time total.  Mostly made from poplar with an oak frame and birch matting, Finished in 5 coats of laquer.

I like how this one turned out and it got the stamp of approval from Lilly :)

Cars Themed Intarsia Piece, Post 3

Lightning is starting to come together.  Had to put him off for a day or so to finish some other projects and start two new ones. What you cant see in photos is how exactly intarsia pieces work depth wise.  The way this piece is made uses thickness to give the illusion of depth. 

The very front right side of the piece is 1/2" thick wood.  It slowly tapers down to just about 5/16" at the left side. Before I start any intarsia, I use colored markers on the design so I know what pieces of wood are what thickness when finished.  This saves me a lot of grief when cutting out the pieces and rounding them off.

Name Plaques

So I make little keychains from wood for friends and such, some people buy them here and there to. But I had a request to make them rather large...3" x 6" or so.   So, I took some ceder I had laying around and voila.

Simple Bowl

Another quick project to relax with while making.  This piece is made from Maple and Walnut scraps I had laying around.  The type of turning is called "segmented".  Where by you decide what wood you wish to use, throw in a little geomatry for angles and such, stack it, glue it, turn it, and voila.

This is EXTREME segmented turning: Extreme Segmented Turning .....It starts getting interesting at 2:40 or so.

Il stick to my little bowl....No chain saw required.

Cars Themed Intarsia Piece, Post 2

So we started Lightning McQueen today (see below). TowMater has his first coat of Finish on him and is currently drying. All in all I have about 4 hours of work into the project.  Once Lightning is done, then I do the background, assemble the whole piece and add a Birch Board backing. 

Gems in the rough

Many times I find myself throwing away cutoffs and scraps.  But every once in awhile, you will come across a piece of scrap not meant for the fireplace.  This was one of those times....Was a cutoff of some splated maple I had in the burn box. 

Played around with it on the lathe and this is what I came up with.  Nothing really to exciting about it except the grain and mars on the wood.

Cars Themed Intarsia Piece, Post 1

Ok, so one of Lilly's teachers asked me to make her a Cars themed intarsia piece for her grandson.  Now, seeing that Lilly is an expert on that little Pixar gem, I have a live in critic!!

The entire piece is made out of  poplar.  If I had known it was just going to be sealed, I would have made it out of maple or some other nice looking wood.

This is "Tow Mater" glued up and waiting.  I would have put some more step by step photos in here, but eh, I started the blog after Mater was in progress.

At this stage he is just glued together.  No finish sanding as of yet to smooth out the edges and no finish on the wood whatsoever.

If you look closely, you can see that my quality control department was eating a jelly sandwich at the time.

Lillys Little Wood Shop

Ok, so I decided it was time to get with it and start a blog.  Easier for people to see what my current projects are and some of the projects I have done in the past.

As of this moment I have four projects I am working on which are:

- "Cars" themed Intarsia piece
- Order of wood key chains
- Toy Bulldozer, with a semi and trailer to haul it.
- Daycare toy's

Once I figure out how to add pictures here, I will do so :)