While picking electives in my high school freshman class, I discovered that I had a real love for working with and building things out of wood. I learned how to draw plans, make accurate measurements, and construct something with my hands from start to finish. This I believe set the stage for a lifelong passion of imagining and building neat stuff.

Our school woodshop was an old one which still had some of the same machines from many decades ago. We started every project from the very beginning. Selecting rough s3s boards, edging the first side, ripping, planing, and gluing them together to form larger boards. Items used few screws as we used an ancient 100 year old machine to drill dowels and biscuit cuts. It was a great experience to use these old machines, and I became very passionate with my projects, spending every available second, break time, and lunch time, to work on them.

Above is my senior year project. It is a coffee table built with cherry wood and black walnut. The top frame was build by making small slices of board on a table saw then gluing the strips together before planing them all flat. What you get is seamless variance of different wood types. On top is a piece of .25" glass.

I wish I had a better photo of the entertainment center above. This was my freshman year project built out of American black walnut. My first big piece of furniture. I admit, I overbuilt it, but the side shelves were to hold speakers, and the top needed to be big enough to hold a 36" CRT television set. The middle of the piece has adjustable shelves for oldschool radio equipment I have removed the side shelves, and when I get some time, I plan to cut the height of the entire thing down by at least 1 foot now that everything has gone digital.

Above and below are photos of my high school sophmore year nightside table. The reason for the above picture was that the table needed to be refubished due to an accident our senile cat had where he felt all territory in the house belonged to him haha. The door in the front is a raised panel made on an ancient machine. The bottom footing was build using a modern moulder machine, the stencil cut out on a bandsaw, and then cleaned up with a spindle sander. The entire project is made out of American black walnut. It used to have

The last item was made during my junior year at high school. It's a simple picture frame made out of a beautiful Mahogany wood and a thin piece of glass. Inside is a signed CD I got that was pretty special at the time.