Learned something new today, as I try to every day. The two mitered corners shown in this picture are two sides of the same corner, splined along the outer edges with walnut. I used the same piece of walnut for both, cutting two adjacent pieces. But as you can see, they look quite different. No finish has been applied, so it's not the finish. The difference is that the one on the right has been sanded to level the spline key with the wood (please forgive the gaps) and the one on the left has been pared with a really sharp paring chisel. In the sanded one, the sawdust from sanding filled the darker parts of the grain, making them less pronounced. That didn't happen with the one that I pared, as there was no sawdust to fill the grain. So, if you want your finished piece to really show off the grain, plane, scrape with a cabinet scraper or pare it with a chisel, rather than sanding. it's more work and requires more skill, but gives great results.

A number of years ago my oldest daughter brought a home with some pretty ugly Teak countertops and asked if I wanted the wood and of course I didn’t say no.A couple of years ago I saw an article in a woodworking magazine for this garden bench, I thought what a great idea for some of the Teak. In the pictures you can see not only the bench, but a shower seat that I made for another daughter and a shower shelf that I made for one my granddaughters. Sometimes all I get is a picture of something that someone would like me to build and I have to figure out how to make it. I will post on how I accomplish this in another post.

Always wanted to make a chess set and board and case.The dark pieces are from a dead cherry tree I took down in my backyard, the light from some popular that I had lying around and the light on the board and case from a piece of maple firewood. Was a good test for doing compound cuts on the scroll saw

Made a couple of these out of walnut and maple for two of my grandchildren’s weddings . Pins on the side of the cross locks it together. Finish was hand rubbed Watch oil

Amazingly none of the wood in this house was not rotten, made this dog kennel from some of the wood