sprague lake, estes park, colorado, 09.19.2004

Christmas Projects 2004

This was my second Christmas since I started woodworking and I tried to do a little more complicated projects than last year.

This stepping stool I made out of soft maple and dyed with lockwood #144. I put several coats of wipe-on poly on top of that.
This plant stand is a short version of the ones I made for us. It is made of out walnut with three coats of orange shellac. I'm just getting into using shellac, but I really liked the look of it on air-dried walnut. I put a coat of waterlox on the top for some additional water protection.

I came up with a simple design for some shelf/mantel clocks. I kept coming up with different wood combinations and ended up making 12 of these. They were really fun to make.

For the clocks, I used two different finishes. They are:
finish A - 3 coats of waterlox original finish/sealer
finish B - 2# cut of orange shellac plus 2 coats of sherwin williams fast dry oil varnish

left: walnut on walnut crotch, finish A
right: QS red oak on walnut crotch, finish A

left: walnut on QS red oak, finish A
right: walnut on QS red oak, finish B
left: walnut on ribbon mahogany, finish B
right: QS sycamore on ribbon mahogany, finish A
left: cherry on mahogany dyed curly maple, finish A
right: walnut on curly maple, finish A
left: cherry on bubinga, finish A
right: QS red oak on bubinga, finish B
left: walnut on chokecherry, finish B
right: antique dyed cherry on chokecherry, finish A