Little Boxes

This Shaker style box made from quarter sawn cherry is one of the most rewarding pieces I have made. It was made to hold the personal belongings of a local pilot whose plane crashed near Everett, WA. I modeled the piece after a blanket chest design.


His son brought me the remnants of a small cherry sapling that was burned at the crash site. You can see the branch here cleaned and debarked.


I sliced it across the grain, bedded it into black gelcoat, and sanded it flat. I then set that panel into a cherry frame and used it for the bottom of the box.


The inset lock allows for an authentic shaker look with the ease of a modern function. Like the box, the key is a bit more elaborate than most original shaker designs, but I like the updated touches.


The hinges are called quadrant hinges and work as both the hinge and lid support. These are manufactured in New York by Brusso, a company founded by a cabinetmaker frustrated by the low quality of furniture hardware.

The Anatomy of a Board

Large pieces of wood are wonderful for grain and color matching. For a small piece of furniture you can get most of the structure and then use the fall down for drawer fronts and panel rail and style stock. The down sides to large pieces of wood they tend to have a lot of strength and twist and bow as they are milled and, unless you have very large machines, they are harder to mill.


I have overcome this issue by splitting the large boardsinto smaller pieces and gluing them back together in the sequence they where split. This stabilizes the wood and allows me to mill them efficiently on my machines.


The three large pieces are for the side of an entry table and the diagonal piece at the top is for the two drawer heads. The grain at that end of the board dived off dramatically and the diagonal cut was to get a straight grain piece. The smaller diagonals and long piece are for panel stock for the shelves and back.

Closet Doors

This is a set of vertical grain Fir solid panel Shoji style doors that I made to replace a 60's style sliding doors in a small Seattle condominium.

I made flush inlaid Cherry pulls, and lined them up with the mid-rail for a clean, minimalist look.

The Fir has a honey tone that adds warmth to any space. The doors hide a washer and dryer and pantry that is next to the open kitchen.

Milled Parts

When I break down larger pieces of wood, I mill them to about 1/8 to 1/4 thicker than I need to net, depending on their size. Then I give them a couple of days to relax.

I like to store my milled parts is with clean dry hardwood stickers like the lighter colored beech strips you see between the walnut. I then weight the stacks down with larger pieces of wood.

The stickers provide a spaces which allow for circulation and the weight helps to keep the pieces flat.

Oregon Black or Claro Walnut

Considered one of the most beautiful woods in the world because of the depth of color and prominent figure, Western black walnut is a woodworker's dream. It is the black walnut common to the Pacific Northwest and Northern California and, unlike most farmed East coast black walnut, it is mostly reclaimed or salvaged which makes it more rare.

Unique Oregon black walnut trees in the temperate climate of the Willamette Valley can yield up to five feet in diameter of high grade, quality lumber. The iron rich Oregon soil and plentiful rain results in lumber of exceptional color, with frequent black and orange contrasts to the usual chocolate walnut tones.

This is a recently purchased figured slab of 5/4 (1 1/4) Figured Oregon Black Walnut for a coffee table.

Real Veneers

One of the best uses of a piece of rare and beautiful wood is to cut it into veneers, for a high yield of precious materials. These thinly sliced cross-sections of a log give a woodworker the ability to have consistant color and graining in figured and flat grained woods.


Commercial veneers are as thin as paper. Without the proper substrate prep, color and texture can telegraph through to a finished surface. These Claro Walnut veneers I recently purchased from Goby Walnut and are a beefy 1/16"+ thick. They are much easier to work with than their commercial counterparts because they handle more like solid stock. They can be edge glued before you lay them up which helps layout and vacuum bagging.


But more importantly, these high quality thick veneers are more durable and easier to repair. If I have to use a commercial veneer I buy what's known as a Tech 3 or 3 ply veneer. Like a very thin plywood (approximately 1/16") the three layers are very strong and durable.