Woodworking

Written by Thomas Porter

Tuesday, 24 October 2006

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Woodworking is one of my favortie hobbies. I call it a hobby because until I make enough money doing it to pay off the equipment, I don't consider it a profession. I like being creative, and building things out of wood makes me feel the most creative of any medium. I love starting with the rough lumber (sometimes so rough it still has the bark on it), and planing it down to see whats underneath the harsh surface. I love designing and constructing a functional piece from scratch. The work below shows some of the finer woodworking pieces in my portfolio. I haven't had enough under my belt to fill multiple pages yet, but I plan to. Feel free to contact me if you wish to discuss a project. I'm willing to make time for woodworking. It's worth taking the time off. I will be adding more projects soon. These are the first I've been able to take pictures of.

-Thomas

Endgrain Flooring
This is my old condo. I decided to make a test project out of it figuring out how to do endgrain flooring. I will be doing a new endgrain floor in my current home eventually. This floor is made from redwood beams. It's laid somewhat like masonry with a running bond pattern. Another name for this style of flooring is "cobblewood". There is very little information out there about this type of floor. There are a few companies out there making the product. It's wrather expensive so I decided to mill it myself. It's very labor intensive, but if you get into that "production groove", it can be done. It really makes a huge difference in the appearance of any room. This flooring technique is very strong, very beautiful in person, and very unique.

Porch Swing
I made this porch swing for my mother's birthday. I had seen a porch swing on the internet I liked, but it had ropes instead of chains and left some hardware exposed. I wanted to see mostly wood. I drew my own plans up and made this swing from cherry and ash with a walnut stain. Screws are hidden by plugs I cut. I inlayed the signatures of all four of her children into the armrest of the swing using ebony.

Mike & Bruce's Home
This contemporary condominium in Central Phoenix has been one creative project after the next. There are still projects in the making, but here are the pieces we've created so far.

	This small piece was made to fit the pocket light above the entryway to hide a junction box and to add balance to some of the other wood accents. The piece is 3/4 solid cherry.

	This shelf is the brainchild of Bruce Graham. He wanted to make a shelf in the entryway that didn't show any hardware. He also wanted it to suspend in between the two pieces of vertical glass. The two boxes are 3/4 solid cherry and compress together against the glass with hidden bolts. The glass is protected by small pieces of clear rubber.

	This low voltage lighting fixture accents the ceiling with a unique piece of 3/4 cherry. The ceilings are solid concrete so the reason for creating this fixture was to keep from having to chisel the conrete for fixtures. The cherry and the wood that it is adhered to are routed for hidden wiring and the mounting hardware.

	There are two pieces I worked on in this picture. We simply needed to cut down a cherry veneer panel for the refrigerator door to specifications outlined by the manufacturer, and using the scraps of the veneer and a leftover cabinet door, we made a faux front to match the cabinets for above the refrigerator as well.

	This was the most difficult project of all. We had to turn an existing multilevel center island into a larger single level bar/island. This required a lot of bracing and designing on the inside, as well as some creative lamination processes. The sides are very large and are made of solid cherry. Notice that these pieces of cherry have incredible figure. They were milled down in my shop from some cherry I found in the attic of a storage building at an estate sale in Mesa. The top is a solid piece of granite, so the island had to be able to support a lot of weight.

	This piece was just a spare cabinet door that we shortened for use as a replacement for the ironing board door in the laundry room.

	This medicine cabinet is more complex than it looks. It seems 3" deep, but when you open the door, the depth is around 5". I rabbited the cabinet back so that is sits in the wall, but has the appearance of being built from the wall out. The doors are solid 3/4 cherry and have no visible hardware. I used barrel hinges for more room within the cabinet and for less visible hardware within. The shelves are a glass.

Last Updated ( Thursday, 05 April 2007 )

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