About Wise Woods
About Wise Woods
I started Wise Woods quite by accident. It actually started as one man’s protest against furniture stores charging high prices for what they called “Fine Furniture”. I’d watched all of those “Do It yourself” shows on the weekends for years just like everyone else. I had always dreamed of being able to make tables like David Marks on Wood Works, or many other useful items like Norm Abrahams on New Yankee Workshop. With the right tools they always made it look so easy. So after several trips to local Furniture stores (both new and previous owned), I kept walking out frustrated by the high prices and low quality craftsmanship. Then one Saturday I was watching Wood Works as usual, and David Marks was making a Hall Table out of Cherry. After that episode, I decided I was going to make that same table. Long story short, I made that table, it may have taken me several weekends to get it done, but my version of that Hall table, turned out to be my first piece of new “Fine Furniture” in my living room. It’s amazing how confident one becomes after successfully completing a project, but I was ready for my next project. I decided that I needed a decent wood workers bench for all future projects that I would take on. Several drawings later, I had a beautiful wood workers bench.
Next thing I knew I was hanging out at my local Rockler Store attending the Sat. morning clinics on “How To” do just about anything I wanted to know. The guys working there were and are a wealth of knowledge for all types of wood working. As I expanded my interests into other areas of wood working, I discovered turning Pens on a mini lathe. Over the next year, I turned and turned, took my pens into the guys at Rockler and got them critiqued, only to go back and turn another pen striving to make that perfect pen. Eventually, I had so many turned pens on hand, that I decided to test the waters, and gave many of my latest pen to my friends. The reactions I got impressed me enough to try turning other objects like tea light holders, wood working tools, and just about anything else I could thing of. Before I knew it, I was receiving a few custom orders for some on my higher quality pen lines.
Wood working has provided me a way to escape the stresses of my regular job in the city. It has allowed me to explore my creative side, which after 20 years in the Marine Corps, was deeply suppressed. Each piece of wood has it’s own story. Each piece is like a new day, each different, each unique.
