Dogs? Yeah, I like dogs.

Just wanted to get a little dog love in. With spring being here and my friends sending me pictures of their new babies, I thought I'd share some pictures of my kid. ...except he's a dog. ...but he's got HOPS!

Such a poser.

The Old Wooden Spoon! (Just newer...)

Wooden spoons with first coat of food safe finish. Top to bottom: Myrtlewood witch's stew spoon, walnut utility spoon, and myrtlewood stew spoon. Suitable for cooking, display, or keeping the kids in line. These will be going on Etsy, as soon as I can get some good pictures taken.

Finish on the Walnut Serving Trays/Platters

 

First coat of finish on a couple of the walnut serving trays I made 2 weeks ago, still wet. Glistening, really.

 Here's one platter without finish (in hand, obviously,) and one with fresh finish on the bottom. I'm giddy like a school girl.

  

 Here goes platter number 3. This stuff is totally food safe, just messy to apply. It's a home brewed proprietary blend I made up on the stove in the house the night before. Once it cools, it turns to the consistency of hard paste wax. So I microwaved it. That way it'll really soak into the pores of the walnut.

 Messy stuff. "Paging Dr. Jellyfinger..."

 Ahhhhhh...... that's better. After slathering on a liberal dose, I'll let the finish soak in for a few hours before coming back and wiping off the excess. I'll do this several times over the course of a few days to build up the protection. The best part is that it uses beeswax, so it smells really good while it goes on.

 

Evil hypnotizing dog invasion!

Walnut Serving Trays and Cutting Boards

Here's a sneak preview of a new product line I'm making to sell on my Etsy site :

Keep in mind these are just cameraphone snapshots I took before applying the food safe finish.

 

 These walnut serving trays are made from English walnut with reclaimed wood feet, and feature a live-edge on at least one side. The walnut features a really cool rainbow of color tones from purple, some red highlights, vanilla, tans, and of course browns.

The feet of this particular serving tray are made from reclaimed exotic pallet material. I'm not sure what it is, but it's super dense, really fantastic deep red/orange tone, and smells like a blueberry pie when it's run through the table saw. It has some nail holes, which I'll need to stabilize with epoxy before final finishing.

Tiger Maple Table Saw Crosscut Sled

My newly finished table saw crosscut sled. 

I used some of the scrap maple that wouldn't work for Nick's crib project to make this long awaited tool. My previous one was just thrown together in a few minutes, with zero form in mind, and wasn't incredibly functional either. Just way too small. 

The maple fence is set to a perfect 90 degrees to the table saw blade, so to cut off the end of a board, you just line up your cut mark with the saw kerf, and voila! Perfectly square cut.

Sawyer's Maple Changing Table

Sawyer hanging out on his new changing table. The pad probably makes it a lot more tolerable for the little guy, but it covers up all that beautiful maple!

What a little poser! Nick (Sawyer's dad) came up with the design. Looks pretty cool with the industrial style legs and vintage locker baskets. 

Nick did a special antiquer's treatment on the legs- starting out with galvanized pipe turned them into a vintage old-looking accent. To get the screw heads to match the patina, I used a grinder and wire wheel, followed up with wood stain and a blowtorch.

To get the maple to "pop" like this, it takes a little more elbow grease than normal finishing. LOTS of sanding. All that work pays off though- with a look that you can't help but run your hands over. 

Not too shabby, huh?

Just finished. Two coats of tinted de-waxed shellac, two coats of Pro-fin, hand rubbed out with steel wool and Briwax, with a high-speed polish. And lots of sanding in between.

 Funny little bugger!

New sign and mom's compost bin

My new shingle. Some pretty intense router work. Blue pine finished with acrylic paint and 3 coats exterior-grade Varathane Diamond Wood finish. 

 The middle sign is reclaimed CVG fir, while the bottom is some live edged 

walnut box stock I'd been saving for years.Both bottom signs the lettering is 

routered out, while the top sign is all relief work.

Mom's Christmas present, a composting tumbler barrel.

The cedar bars on the outside I'm holding on to act as both a handhold for turning the barrel, as well as give an attachment point to auger type cedar fins on the inside. The fins break up the composting material and keep it from just sliding along the bottom.

Here's the barrel in its new home. The wood plugs in the pipe are to keep bees from nesting in there in the summer.