Claro walnut is one of my favorite woods to turn. It grows in Northern California, Oregon and Washington. It is commercially important for lumber but also as rootstock in English Walnut orchards.

I’m a big fan of figured maple. In general, maple turns very well. The grain is tight and takes a good finish. There is a great range in the types of figure you see in maple. Names like “blister”, “cloud”, “sausage”

Ribbon sapele is easy to spot. The figure is like ribbon candy. The ribbon figure occurs when sapele is quartersawn so that the growth rings are perpendicular to the face.

A friend of mine has a molding shop and he runs thousands of board feet of lumber every year. When he finds an exceptional plank he sets it aside for people like me. I bought a maple plank from him 7-8 years

I do not usually turn exotic woods but this board was an exception.  A friend was having difficulty selling his wood collection and needed to sell it to move.  I bought this board and quite a few others from him.

Veneer logs are usually very high quality, highly figured sections of tree with very few defects. The logs are mounted on a rotating machine similar to a lathe.

Try to turn the logs as soon as you can after they are cut. If you are not able to turn them immediately, seal the ends with Anchorseal. There are other brands but I’ve always used Anchorseal.

Chatoyant derives from the French verb chatoyer that literally means "to shine like a cat's eyes.  In wood, the word chatoyant is used to describe the way light refracts on abrupt changes in grain direction.

I’ve written before about the joy of discovering a beautiful bowl when you finish turn a dry green bowl. The first picture below is one of the bowls I turned today. It is covered in wax and accumulated dust.

I didn’t lose my job, i lost my web guru. She fired me as a client. It wasn’t about money, we didn’t have an argument, there were no creative differences.

I have made two variations of wooden puzzles for over forty years. We have the large one in our living room. When our grandkids visit, at some point during their stay they gravitate to the puzzle.

OK, we left off yesterday with you hovering over the add to cart button. Press it now. medium force, don’t damage anything. In the top right hand corner you’ll see your cart

I realized today that I hadn’t offered any training on how to buy a bowl or puzzle on this website. It’s very clear from the anemic sales that you need training, too! So the first thing you need to decide is just who

I’ve got to switch it up. No bowls today. It’s puzzle day. I have an order for 4 puzzles and I have none in inventory. I make two sizes of wooden puzzles, small and large. They are often called quilters puzzles

Understand that I’m less than halfway through the beginners course here but I do have a couple of other hints to pass on. Instagram! Instagram works if you use the right hashtags. I don’t have any idea what

Many of you know that Oscar goes with me everywhere. He waits expectantly every morning, eager to walk down to the shop. What you don’t know is that he surfs the internet at night looking for ways to boost

As some of you know, I changed my website a couple of weeks ago. I was Sanders Fine Woodworking for 10 years. I needed to change my web host and the platform the website was built on.

The last few days I’ve posted pictures of bowls I’m making from some beech logs (and the shavings that process produces). The entire process from log to finished bowl takes about a year. The bowls turned from freshly cut logs

From 1981 to 2017 I traveled almost every week around the world as a Field Sales Engineer. My favorite part of every week was coming home. Home to rural North Carolina, to the house and shop that Pennie and I

Over the last week I’ve had website visitors from 19 states and 8 foreign countries. Wow. That’s in one week. A number of you have come back multiple times. Thank you.