The Dovetailed Wall Shelves

 I designed these shelves so that from the bottom shelf to the top, they move from heavy to slender. The sides are walnut, the fronts are mahogany. The sides are dovetailed to the front (all cut by hand) with a different layout for each shelf (widths of tails and number of joints.) To attach the bottom-most shelf to the wall required a false top (since only a mouse can get under the bottom shelf) which press fits neatly and does not reveal that it comes out with a light blow from below. 

The Wenge Shelves

Wenge is an astonishing and majestic species. It is also very toxic as dust and stings like hell when you get it splintered in your hands. I designed and built these shelves from scratch using solid wenge for the working surfaces and wenge plywood for the outer walls of the case. They are heavy. It's a good thing book shelves mainly sit in one place for a long time.

The Carved Hand

 

A friend informed me that a storm knocked over an old cherry tree in his neighbor's yard. I brought a chainsaw and we cut several slabs each weighing 200 to 400 pounds. After resawing the chunks and removing rot, I let the pieces air dry for two years. This carving, done almost exclusively with hand chisels, took a month to complete. The 1% dremel work was done to reach undercuts in the folds of skin on the insides of fingers, where I could not possibly reach with any of my hand tools.