Now you see it, now you don't
I was going to talk about the "bad breath" wood this time but upon reflection I have decided that topic stinks! So in brief, the wood is Russian Olive and it stinks in so many ways. First it's a messy and dirty tree with nasty thorns. Second it is a water sucker, and Third, it smells like cat pee when you work it. It does have one redeeming quality however, it is pretty nice looking when all finished up. Here is a website that has many pictures of stuff made from it. Some pretty cool stuff.
You will want to keep your distance from all the woodworkers however, as they will now and forever smell of cat pee. Not a good marketing strategy I think. Ok, so they don't smell like cat pee any more, but they did. Give me scrub oak...it smells of a whiskey barrel.
The video here attached shows how Game On is beginning to take shape. With much effort, tedium and persistence, a design gradually becomes a tangible piece of...well...Art. There is not another one like it that I have ever seen or heard of and it is doubtful it will ever be mass produced. What you see here are the stages of a piece that excite me. You start off with some graphite and a lot of eraser marks on a few pieces of paper. Then you gather the raw material, from the forest in this case. Some of it you mill into planks that are then "Stickered" and left to air dry for months (slow is better me thinks) or kiln dry for days. Then you make the parts to make other parts to make other parts to eventually combine the parts to make the sum of the parts and voila! you now have something that looks like part of your original sketch, and it is good. Sometimes very good. Sometimes not so good, which is very bad but in this case it was very good.
At these times, I often think of the line in Young Frankenstein where Gene Wilder (aka Dr. "roll in da hay" Fronkensteen) says, "It's a-l-i-v-e!"
So...now you are beginning to "see it" where as before you did not.
This is Dan Rieple, Believe it.
