Rocks bowl
Maple burl bowl
This bowl was turned as a gift for the vacation house of family friends. It is one of the larger bowls I turned from a large slab of maple burl I received from a carpenter who turned bowls once a week. I did nothing to fill or glue the holes in the bowl; as a bread bowl or other dry goods, these defects will be of little consequence. The bowl is now in the Green Mountain State: Vermont.
Bedroom closets
The closet are painted to match the walls
Trays at mid-height and at the bottom fully extend
One close includes drawers for small items
Five doors conceal three closets, the group of which also functions as the fourth wall to a bedroom. This wall includes the frame of the door to the room.
The closet doors are water resistant* medium density fiber board (MDF — médium en français) painted white to match the walls of the room. Water resistant MDF is heavier than the standard. It cuts more cleanly and takes finishes better. The knobs are brass.
All cabinet boxes, custom-sized to maximize the use of space, are built using oak veneer plywood, finished in a water-based polyurethane. The cabinet boxes are edged with 10mm of solid oak. The end closet on the right includes five drawers of baltic birch plywood with full extension glides.
Cabinet fronts
Still a work in progress, the wood for these cabinet fronts are on their fourth life. (Fifth if you count the tree.) Purportedly once installed as paneling in a church, the materials were first reused as cabinet fronts in this very kitchen. Some years after that first application, the cabinets were changed and the fronts changed with them, being cut and reshaped as needed.
Then it was my turn. With a need to be even more daring, some new pieces were milled (savaged from an existing wood floor which itself was once reclaimed from the floors of box cars) to stretch the widths of some of the panels and build new shapes in their entirety (e.g. the drawer fronts under and to the left of the sink).
Small bowl no. 2
A small bowl from a mulberry log.
Small bowl
This bowl is turned from green wood which fell sometime in late spring 2013. My best guess for the wood species is mulberry, which struck me as eerily similar to osage orange. As it happens, these two trees are in the same family, moraceae.
Osage orange bowl no. 2
A shallow bowl turned from a log of Osage orange, where the cracks won. Note the skips in the turning visible just to the left of the large crack at the rear.
The crack is filled with cyanoacrylate glue with a mix of coffee grounds and sawdust.
The finished bowl, a gift for a cousin, was photographed in Villiers-sous-Grez, France.
Inglenook
I designed and built this seating nook next to the fireplace my home in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, USA. Under the cushioned seating are four drawers. Where the recess ends but the hickory veneered plywood continues is an under-stair cabinet, the outfitting of which was completed at a later date by the Charles Snead Co. of Boyce, Virginia, USA. The inglenook includes adjustable recessed lighting above the seat. The inglenook gathers the warmth from the fireplace but is also one of the more pleasant places in the house during the summer months.
Pear wood bowl
8 15/16″ x 3 3/8″ from a log of about 12″ diameter. A blank, with a wall thickness just under an inch was turned in October. After monitoring the weight change in the blank (and knowing I wanted a bowl to bring to France), I chose to complete the turning. As it happens, the wood was still a little yet yielding a slightly distorted round as I completed the final turning. The pear wood log was from Paul Simmons of Valley Trees. Sanding was done up to 4000 grit. The finish is “salad bowl” finish with three coats of wax. Some lines are still present but are possibly within wax coat.
Update: This bowl was given to my friend and sometimes colleague Eric Duplan of TESIS. He lives with his family at an old farm in the Tourraine, providing space for his sizable metal and woodworking atelier and baking operations. This bowl receives heavy use and has survived a number of excursions in a microwave.
Walnut bowl
This bowl was turned from a blank that was part of grab bag of wood turning blanks. It has an oil and wax finish. Unfortunately, some minor scratches remain. While this bowl is one of my favorites, with its slight outward flare at the rim, I no longer use it for light snacks at home. Walnut wood is known to cause allergic reactions in many people. I have found that I am sensitive to the dust.
thecaveforwood.work 