On-Site Guest

While working on a walking staff, one of the carvers had a guest. This three year old black bear munched on hazelnuts that had fallen from a tree, while the human whittled. Both more or less ignored each other. (The photographer was a little more nervous, so the pictures are a bit blurry.)

The bear eventually wandered off into the meadow and the carver wandered back to the woodshop. Bears are more frequent at the end of the season. We let them do their own thing and they don’t disturb us. It’s a relaxed work setting for all parties concerned.

Table for One

We found an interesting steel rod chair. It’s rusty and the seat was missing, but there are no accidental bends and the ball bearing feet are intact. The welds are still good. Rather than paint the metal, we’ve weather treated it the way we found it. The seat was made from left over spruce slats tongue and grooved, glued and stained a deep burgundy—the inspiration was the evening sky, perfect for a quality cup of coffee and some quiet reflection.

There was more spruce than we knew what to do with, so we also made hallway shelves, a spice rack, a tea cupboard, and a little table for one. Same technique, glued to fit and the leg was cut from six slats and pressed together like a vertical jigsaw puzzle. We did two tables, one with a round top and one square…alas the round top was claimed by a friend. We hope to have a picture of the entire set together some time.

It was a fun side project using slightly warped, left over spruce.

Table: 13″ wide, 27″ tall, 10″ base. Chair: 18″ tall at seat, 34″ back, 13″ wide.

Finished in oil stain and polyurethane.