Creating this new website has been a huge challenge for me. There has been so much to learn. I would much rather be making bowls on the lathe. Oscar my Great Dane feels the same way. He’s tired of waiting around the house watching me work on the computer, he wants to go to the shop.

Sanders Woodworking is a family business.  Both of my sons, Nathan and Stephen, help in the shop on occasion, my daughter Sarah helps update the website and and my daughter Dianna gives me photography lessons.  My wife Pennie does the most, signing the bowls, packing them safely in totes until they sell, packing them to ship and gift wrapping them when the occasion arises. She also helps with cutting boards and puzzles.

I source almost all of my wood locally.  More and more friends and neighbors are on the lookout for downed trees and burls.  Some are given to me, some I buy but most are local.

Occasionally I purchase exotic wood.  This bowl was made from a piece of Greek olive wood.  A big hardwood supplier opened in NC last year and I went to the grand opening. To support this local business, I bought a few bowl blanks including this one.

Several people told me mimosa made pretty bowls. My neighbor cut down several mimosa’s to make way for a building project. Here is one bowl I turned from the stump.

Above is a picture of two pallets of mulberry burls (plus a few cherry burls) that my son Stephen gave me for my birthday three years ago.  I have tried several times to get them cut up into bowl sized chunks so I can turn them.  Something always happens.  I got a very large pecan log, then a huge maple log, several dogwood logs and two big loads of of walnut and maple.

Below is a small mulberry burl bowl that is representative of the burls on the pallets.  So I ask again, what am I waiting for?

This is a walnut platter that I am finishing. I have added a ridge on the flat rim. I’m not sure I like the look but I love the feel in my hands. It just kind of happened as I was turning the top and I decided to enhance it and leave it. What do you think?

I love this bowl. I loved it as soon as I started turning it.  I like the green, I love the purple, the shape is just right and the contrasting colors are sensational.  It has an undercut rim that helps keep the salad in!  It will serve 2-4.  It has a food safe, natural, walnut oil finish.

I am visiting Frisco, TX, near Dallas, TX, and the record heat (40 days over 100 degrees) ended today.  It was just 96 today.  It will go back to 103 tomorrow but I’m flying home.  Good bye Dallas.

Here’s a hot bowl I finished the other day.  It’s made out of magnolia.  I love the dark demarcation lines on every growth ring.  Enjoy.

First Florida stop is Longboat Key near Sarasota.  We stopped to visit with my webmaster.  He built and maintains Sanders Fine Woodworking.  There isn’t a nicer, smarter man on the planet.  We met for dinner last night and will visit he and his family today.  We are so lucky to have such good friends.

My definition of a vacation is working long hours in the shop making beautiful things out of wood.  My wife’s idea of a vacation is walking on the beach looking for shells.  We are compromising.  We are off to Sanibel Island, Florida which is reputed to have the best shell beach in the world.  When we get back, I’ll make bowls for a few days before I go back to my day job.  My daughter and her beau will house sit and feed and care for the animals while we’re gone.

I keep making bell shaped bowls. Some wood just lends itself to that shape or I am fixated on bells, I don’t know which.

When I started my ETSY site, www.sanderswoodworking.etsy.com, I only listed a few pieces. Sales came pretty quickly so I added every new piece as I made them. I forgot to go back and list earlier pieces. I just discovered that 60 or more pieces were never listed on ETSY. Here’s one I just listed.

I got another batch of veneer cores and I’m trying to decide what to make out of them. First I had to look at them for a few weeks. Yesterday I couldn’t stand it and I cut the first blank. Below is the Birdseye Maple Hollow Form I made from that first blank. I also have an inquiry about a bowl made from the same core. Veneer cores are hard to come by and I feel some responsibility to make them into something that shows off their beautiful figure.

Last week I attended a course at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC.  The course was on turning footed bowls, platters and vessels.  The process involves turning the inside and some of the outside of a piece and power carving the rest. 

I found a shop on ETSY today that is selling sanded pieces of wood with an oil finish.  They cut a natural edged board with a chop saw, sand it. oil it and take pictures of it.  While some pieces have figure, most are plain grained.  I am astounded at what people will buy and how much they’ll pay for it.  That’s not really sour grapes, it’s just go figure.