Wood

There is not a wood that we cannot or have not worked with. Each project has a look and feel of its own and calls for its own special wood.
Because there are so many beautiful choices, we have tried to simplify a few things below.

Each handmade piece is made from either Engineered Wood/Hardwood Plywood (Cabinet Stock) or Solid Hardwood - both from Upper Northern Michigan. You, of course, get to choose.

Some examples of what we have used on this portfolio: White Oak, Maple, Hickory, Curly Maple, Pine, Cherry......

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Spalted Beech:
Spalted wood embodies all that is curious in the natural world. It is formed by unseen organisms at a specific time and place that only it knows.

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Plywood (Cabinet Stock) is a type of engineered wood made from thin sheets of wood, called wood veneers. The layers are glued together, each with its grain at right angles to adjacent layers for greater strength. Plywood is a wood product manufactured out of many sheets of veneer, or plies, pressed together and glued, with their grains going in opposite directions.

A common reason for using plywood instead of plain wood is its resistance to cracking, shrinkage, twisting/warping, and its general high degree of strength. In addition, plywood can be manufactured in sheets far wider than the trees from which it was made.

Plywood is also referred to as an engineered wood, although it is made from a composite of wooden materials, and various forms of it have been made for thousands of years. The plies that form plywood are generally cut on a rotary lathe, which cuts a continuous roll of wood while a log, called a peeler, is turned against it. Rotary lathing is rapid and makes efficient use of the wood while turning out veneers highly suitable for plywood. Some lathes are designed to expose more interesting parts of the wood grain, although they may be more wasteful of the wood. Rotary lathed veneers tend to be dull in appearance, although perfectly functional. After the veneers are cut, they are overlaid with layers of glue and pressed together until dry to form a flat, even, tight piece of plywood. Plywood is sturdier than regular sheets or panels of wood, because the veneers are laid with their grains opposing, which also causes the wood product to resist warping because the grains pull each other tight. Plywood comes in a number of forms, including softwood plywood, which is made from pine, fir, or spruce. Softwood plywood is usually pale in color and is used in construction applications. Plywood can also be decorative, with a facing veneer of exotic hardwoods. Mahogany or birch are used to create an extremely strong type of plywood known as aircraft plywood, because it was utilized in the construction of aircraft through the Second World War.

We never use particle board/oriented strand board: A structural material made of wood fragments, such as chips or shavings, that are mechanically pressed into sheet form and bonded together with resin..