Walnut Knife Strip, Two Strips

Two strips, both walnut

Honestly, you've all seen this before. This is just a way of showing how the same species can vary in appearance in subtle ways. Both strips are walnut. The top has lighter coloration, and a little more variation between light and dark in its grain pattern, the bottom strip is a very uniform color. Otherwise, nothing really to see here, except, of course, you're welcome to buy one.

Zebrawood Knife Strip 2.0 - To Australia!

It's hard to imagine that I'll ever sell anything to a buyer that's farther away than this. From Wisconsin to Woodville South, Australia, this knife strip is traveling over 9,900 miles to its destination. What a world we live in, eh?

More pics after the jump:

Small Rectangular Dice Tray - Ash with Cork Lining

Ash, cork, and 12 mm dice

Just wanted to provide photos of another wood and color combo. This time, ash paired with cork lining. As with essentially all of my pictures with dice, the gold dice are 12 mm (1/2") and the blue dice are 19 mm (3/4").

I have a gallery of small rectangular dice trays here,

and

I have them for sale here.

More pics after the jump.

Sitka Spruce Slab

Sorry, not a great picture

Just a before shot of a live edge slab of sitka spruce, about 1 3/4" thick. I can't wait to get this thing into its finished form, for reasons that will become apparent in due time.

Sitka spruce is kind of uncommon in the Midwest. It's fairly common in the Pacific Northwest. The wood is light, 27 lbs/cubic foot (compared with 44 lbs/cubic foot for red oak). It's pretty soft too, with a Janka hardness of 510 lbf (compared with 1,220 lbf for red oak). That means its about 61% as heavy as red oak, and less than half has hard.

It, like pine, is described as being difficult to stain. The grain structure lends itself to blotchiness, apparently. Luckily, I have no intention of staining this piece.

Now the trick will be finding spruce in non-live-edge-slab-form...

Curly Maple Knife Strip

Curly maple, sometimes called "tiger," "flame," or "fiddleback" maple, is nothing more than maple with an irregular figure. It's not common, and because of its relative scarcity (and the fact that it looks really cool) it commands a premium price. I laid hands on a piece of highly figured curly maple that was just perfect for a couple magnetic knife strips. One sold the other day and here are a couple pictures of it.

One's still available (just in case you're interested) on the Etsy store.

General Finishes - Spiced Walnut

I made a rustic crate. It's basically just a box. But, we wanted it stained darker rather than the bright yellowish color of pine. So, off to General Finishes we go and to their swatches. We opted for an oil-based liquid stain, specifically Spiced Walnut Oil Stain. After the jump are some pictures of how it turns out on pine.

Elongated Octagonal Dice Tray - Maple with Cork Lining

Maple with cork lining

Another dice tray went out, this one maple with a cork lining. Finished with Formby 30063 Tung Oil, 16-Ounce, which is an easy-to-use, fast-drying, wiping varnish. It turned out nicely.

As always, they are available on Etsy.

Elongated Octagon

Octagon (domestic hardwoods)

Octagon (exotic hardwoods)

Small Rectangle

Large Square