WoodDude78

I have been a self-taught woodworker for nearly twenty years now, having learned to work wood by reading books and magazines, then building skills and trying out different techniques by making small projects and sample pieces. Since I started out with a very small shop and only a couple of small power tools, I initially concentrated on making small, carved boxes with hand tools, often using wood gathered from local street and park trees that had been cut down.

My shop has grown, and I now have a nearly full complement of power tools. I still enjoy using hand tools most of all, and, like the craftsmen of the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th Century, I have found a balance between using electrical and muscle power to produce tight-fitting joinery and to get glass-smooth surfaces quickly. My shop space has grown, and so have many of the projects I work on, which now include furniture, cabinets and built-in furniture, accessories, boxes, and lathe-turned items such as bowls, boxes, and fine writing instruments. I still like to use locally harvested wood, but I often find myself running to the lumberyard instead of the lumber stack on cabinet and furniture projects, due to the small dimensions of lumber available from local trees.

One hobby that has come about as a result of my woodworking is my interest in photography. What started out as a desire to get better pictures of my projects for a portfolio soon developed into a hobby, while my hobby of woodworking developed into a passion for creating functional art from wood. All of the photography on my website is my own (unless otherwise noted), and now photography has become part of my own “fitness program,” as I hike across the wild lands of Southern California photographing landscapes and historical sites. Hiking and hand tools are about the only exercise I seem to get these days…

Gender: Male