Our Current Projects

These are the current projects we are working on:

1) State Tree Wood Pen Project - A project that developed from a friend at the International Association of Penturners. We are making pens from wood that came from each state tree as well as the territories. Many fellow turners sent us wood from their home states so that we could be as authentic as possible. We are almost half way through this project and it has been a blast. We will post the completed pens in our Completed Projects post.

12/8/10 - Put the finish on the next 16 pens. Only lost one when we turned it. For some reason white oak burl does not like us. Have lost 2 of this same wood. Next up will be to wet sand and polish - then assembly and photo. After that we will start on the next set.

12/13/10 - Only happy with the finish on 4 of the pens. We will redo the rest and try again. Sometime being a perfectionist is not a good thing.

4/9/11 - Still working on these. Almost out of wood. Need to find the rest of the states!


2) Scrollsaw Christmas Project - this one is a secret for our relatives but we will show photos after Christmas. We can say that we used a lot of Red Oak! Decided to show a intentionally blurred photo as a teaser! We have all of these cut and now on the sanding part. After that will be the finishing.

12/8/10 - Put the second coat on the first three. Still have a ton more to sand. Also have to decide if we are going to have time to do the rest before Christmas.

12/13/10 - Three done, three almost done and the rest are coming along. The sanding is killing us. Keep braking the sanding belts we bought for the scroll saw. Even broke a sanding drum belt that we add in the drill press.

4/9/11 - We finished most of these and handed them out as Christmas presents. Now we are working on some follow up ones. Still having a hard time with the sanding in the tight areas.

3) Bowls and Various Other Turnings - Woodturning is where we started from and so we are constantly turning many things out on our lathes. Woodturning will always be our first love.

This bowl is one we are currently working on. We are having a lot of tear out issues with it and are hoping that a lot of sanding will take care of that. Also we have no clue what the wood is. The guy who gave us the logs thought they were willow but the wood is not that light or easy to work with. Any one have any ideas what kind of wood it is?

4/9/11 - Alicia has really gotten into turning bowls and has made two so far as well as her first tea light. She is also finishing up the bowl pictured above.

4) Carousel Horse Restoration
We have this in it's own separate post but wanted to include this since it is a current project of ours.

Current State of Carousel Horse

4/9/11 - Have not had much time to work on this project and am really not sure where to start to be honest. Still doing a little research on restoring carousel horses.


5) Pen Stands
We are working on making our own pen stands so that we can start doing arts and crafts shows this summer and fall.

In Progress - Walnut 10 Pen Stand