Here is a gorgeous hunk of walnut cut into two pieces made to be used as a rustic yet elegant breadboard or cheese tray or serving block.  In my humble opinion, it would even make a really nice foundation for a rustic, late winter centerpiece display.  Let the wood-porn ensue!  My only wish is that I could take better photos of these things.

This gorgeous walnut board duo, salvaged from the garbage heap at a local lumber mill, is available for purchase as long as you get to it before I completely fall in love with it and begin using it as a percy centerpiece!

Salvaged Wood Chair - wood burned for real

This was my first ever salvaged wood burned chair.  I found this little guy hanging out next to the dumpster in the ally behind my house, brought it home and gave it a little TLC.  I sanded the finish off, which was flaking off at the time due to the high humidity of St. Louis summer.  I then left it to sit for a long time until I finally just went for it.  I got my grandfathers old pyrography kit, a kick ass machine which I will show you sometime.  I began burning designs into the chair, and made a new seat for it using some mill scrap, then finished it all with shellac.  One of a kind chairs can be bought starting at $150. 

Gift for my grandfather - a wood burned woodman logo made on beautiful walnut from the garbage bin.

My grandpa Gene is a great guy.  Not only has he been a kick ass grandpa, but he also was early inspiration for me to get into woodworking.  He used to own a small woodworking shop in Racine, WI when I was a kid.  I still remember the smell of the wood dust everywhere, and the racks of carving knives and the barrels of dowels. 

Grandpa Gene actually is an accomplished wood carver.  He wrote the book on carving, literally.  He wrote a book about carving birds, penguins, and fish.  It is actually still available on Amazon.  I never really appreciated the wealth of information he is until recently.  I now use a bunch of the tools he used to use in his shop.  He is far too old now to do wood working, but one is never too old to appreciate a nice hunk of walnut.  So I found a nice scrap piece at the mill, and burned my logo onto it and finished it with shellac and wax and gave it to him as a holiday gift.  Behold me trying to take the photo in my car, crappy version of a photo, but nice piece nonetheless.

A gorgeous, very old looking handmade wooden guitar pedal board and case

I made this case for my best friend Chris, who also happens to be my bandmate in Yugen (the one from St. Louis).  The security of his equipment is close to my heart since he is half of our band, so I really made the crap outta this one.

 

Here she is.  A delicious mixture of all "reclaimed" (read: found in the trash at Wunder Woods) pieces of wood.  I used everything from furniture plywood to pine 1x2s, ash, sycamore and red oak.  Keep in mind, this was made of pieces I mined from the garbage bin at the lumber mill I work at.

After I selected the nice ash board piece and sized it up, I basically built a box upside down.  What I mean is the bottom of the box is shorter than the top, the opposite of normal.  I built the very bottom of the box using a strip of furniture grade plywood.  I google searched the rise of traditional pedal boards and found that a 10° grade is standard.  I chopped down some pieces of trashy oak for risers. They would never have gotten used but were virtually out of sight, so out of mind too.

 You can see the simple 1x2 pine wood band around the base.  I used this because I thought it would be easiest to work with and I was just starting the thing.  Doing it again, I would use something much harder here, preferably something that matched the top.

 The nice looking hunk of sycamore that Scott gave me.  This wasn't necessarily "garbage" but I asked if it was, and he let me have it.  It was right next to the garbage can.  Gorgeous. 

 I decided I would use some new window sash locks.  I bought them at Home Depot.  They lock the top in place perfectly so there is absolutely no play when you carry it around.  Good idea.  Oil-rubbed bronze color.

 After the first coat of stain on the inside of the box.  By this point, it was looking pretty delicious.

 The very bottom.  The stain makes the weird plywood look even more weird.  But not necessarily bad. 

 

 Here it is.  mmmmm.  I used the "jacobean" color stain from Minwax, then a couple coats of shellac, then a fine finish of wax.  Mmm, put on those window locks, the rusty old handle from my croquet set and put those pedals in.  Here are some more pictures.

 I didn't use wax on the actual pedal board of course...the velcro for the pedals wouldn't have stuck.  Mmmm mmm mm, just gorgeous grain on that ash board.

 The finished product.  It feels cohesive, and looks like it is about 85 years old.  It kind of looks like a treasure chest.  I may add black metal amplifier corners to reinforce the strength of the wood on the corners, but Chris only wants those if they can be pounded into place to fit the shape of the corners.

Mmmmmmm.  Tasty.  I make custom pedal boards out of reclaimed Missouri hardwoods starting at $200.  I work closely with each person when I make custom pieces to make sure it is the absolute perfect fit, color and style.  It was honestly hard to give this one up at any price.  I thoroughly enjoyed the creation of this piece.

New Coop for my Backyard Chickens

Using some new, some old, and some very old wood, I constructed a new (a 10x better) coop for my 3 chickens.  They deserve it.  They survived summer heat, dog attacks, animal control visits, minimal space and more.  I found this person's post - Wichita Cabin Coop - on backyardchickens.com and was highly inspired.  The paving stone "foundation" was what really drew me to these plans.  I think whoever built the original was much more skilled than I, so my coop is just a simplified version of the cabin coop you'll see if you follow the link.  Honestly, the doors were the hardest part.

The coop here in my S. St. Louis City back yard.

A supremely unflattering picture of our lovely residents.

Look! An egg on the first morning after the girls moved in.  Yummers.

If you'd like to know more about what I did and the materials I used, or if you live in or around St. Louis and you'd like to talk about me building you a sweet coop for your own urban farm, just drop me a line!

Gorgeous handmade leatherbound journal - a Hanukkah gift from my mother.

This little journal is so beautiful I just had to share it.  The pictures don't do it justice because the feel of the leather is so soft and lofty and aged that it's just like butter.  Extremely handily and hardily constructed by Megan Winn of the Binding Bee.  It will be a difficult moment to put pen to paper in this journal.  This is the only hard thing about journals like these.  They make me feel like I should be writing some kind of poetry or stream of consciousness or some other highly self-indulgent writing.  But that is not always what I need to use paper for.  Perhaps the best way to honor this gorgeous little book, and the talented artisan behind its creation, is to use the shit out of it.  Make lists and take notes, and write down ideas and use it like any other journal.  Still, it's just so nice.  Now to the pics--

Expertly bound.

I didn't take this picture wrong, I think Megan Winn double-stamped.

Wooden SD memory card case - A Hanukkah gift for my wife.

I have been wanting to try making a slightly more complex box, and the perfect opportunity arrived when my wife told me she was thinking about buying some shitty plastic memory card case.  I said "just wait, maybe Hanukkah Harry may bring you something you need"....he did.  Using some beautiful hardwood scraps salvaged from Scott's trash can, I put together this wooden memory card case.

Cherry and Red Oak Wooden Memory Card Case.

It took forever to figure out how the hell to make the slots since I don't have a table saw which would make this really really simple.  Using some scrap pallet wood, I finally realized that I could just cut two small strips of wood and then cut mirror-image half-slots in each strip with my miter saw and glue them together.
After that, it was pretty straightforward and fun.  I used only wood glue and simple tools and stain/finish combo.  I plan to wax it at some point, but not now.  I got this gift to my lovely wife on the very last night of Hanukkah.

Gotta burn-sign this one on the back.  This is the wood-man signature.

I love making boxes.  I love holding and using wooden boxes.  I love being able to make a box for anything.  Here are a couple pictures of the final product.  It can hold up to 8 SD memory cards, although I could easily make another to fit any number of them (for any of you reading this who are keen on hand-made wooden things).

Here is the wood memory card case, all tied up nice with a leather strap.

I still have some things to learn about glue, and its stain-repellant properties.  And because I was cutting such thin slivers on the miter saw, I was able to realize that its fence isn't perfectly square...in fact it is almost 1/8" off over all!  That is huge when you are making a small box like this.  Damn...Gotta fix that.  I basically had to use crappy but straight 1x2s as a guide.  It made cutting the small pieces a little more intimidating. All things considered though, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in my basement workshop creating this piece and thinking each bit through.  Fun fun fun.  Feel free to order one from me.