Embedded Files
Gold trim bottle opener, feels nice and solid in the hand. Made with Osage Orange wood and the highlight lines are wire burned. Approximately 4 1/2" from end to end.
Silver trim bottle opener made with maple wood. Turned it down thin and added nice feeling contours. Approximately 4 1/2" from end to end.
Another new piece of equipment I got in 2019 is a CNC machine. More than any other piece of equipment, this one has taken me the longest to learn - and I've got a very long way to go. I've made a few signs and plaques, but the above two were for friends. One is for a friend's family's private cemetery and the other is for another friend's family's cabin on a lake. This one shows a map of the lake that I took from Google Maps, with my son's help we removed most of the fluff but kept the roads in there. It's hard to see but the lake itself is sunken into the wood and painted - but the roads are actually raised above the rest of the wood giving it a great amount of depth and character. The cemetery sign is an outdoor sign, so I put 3 coats of polyurethane on it, over the normal clear coat I give most of my work (Arm-R-Seal). The map is an indoor piece so only the Arm-R-Seal was used (3 coats). More info on the CNC machine will be on another page.
If you have any questions about anything on this site, please email me at don@pghrare.com
On Thanksgiving day, 2018, I brought 2 rescue dogs into my family. Instead of putting them in cages when I'm away I let them have the living room and they're great that way. I built the fence on the above left and it's worked amazingly well. Just pine wood but very sturdy. With the CNC machine I made an inspirational sign for a friend's daughter upon request. This was the first thing I made for anyone else on that machine and I thought it came out great - she wanted "Choose Happy" to be on there, along with sunflowers. I found the images I needed and she took it and painted it herself. It was a great project! I was also able to route the edges to look a lot like a picture frame - very happy with the outcome.
I was reading an article on the internet one day and I read a great little article someone wrote. To summarize, a guy has a friend with terminal cancer. He visits often and one day he went there and found a couple pieces of paper on the walls saying the same thing - "I get to...". He asked her about it and she said something to the extent of "Well, I know I don't have long, and I don't want to complain about it any more. Everything I do now should be special. I used to say "Ugh...I have to go to the store and get groceries" or "I have to go put gas in the car". But now I realize everything I do is special, I GET to do them, I don't have to". I loved this story so much that I made these 2 plaques and finished them. I posted them on facebook and they ended up with 2 people with terminal illnesses. This right here...this is why I got into woodworking.
If you have any questions about anything on this site, please email me at don@pghrare.com
Report abuse