Zoot Fenster

A Kathy Wise pattern. Pretty easy to make, although I would reduce the size next time. Curly maple and mahogany flowers dyed red and yellow. Poplar body dyed green. Misc ground pieces. I assembled the flowers first. In retrospect, I should be started from the middle and worked outward. Still fun! Onto a toy train for the grandkid!

I love dyed wood. It is an easy way to get vibrant colors, especially red, green, orange and blue. The base wood is often curly maple which adds to the 3D look. And it makes complex sections easy to cut and guaranteed to fit together. Transtint and Transfast dyes are the most common. One is powder and one is liquid. A 15ml test tube is usually more than enough for a project. I have a small rack of test tubes with different strength dyes and sanded wood dust.

Nicely done!

It has been June since I made an intarsia piece. Lots of traveling and furniture building. This one was fun and pretty easy. Mostly curly maple dyed yellow and green. Some red wood dowels for the center. Padauk, walnut and mahogany leaves and ground. I pulled cactus spines (we have a lot of them) and then decided to just use toothpicks. Glad to see y'all are still around.

All are great, but I find the pike to be outstanding. Very nice job of cutting the matching pieces.

Very nice! Good job selecting the wood.

A time consuming project. The key learning experience was how to place stagger the leaves and flowers. It was cut from three pieces of curly maple, so the pieces automatically fit together, but the overall pattern shrunk due to the cut lines. Fitting the six flowers together was a challenge. Transtint red and Transfast Dark Green dye. The centers are 5/16" yellowheart dowels. A large dresser is on the bench and we camp Oregon and Washington in August, so I am off until the fall. Thanks for looking!

Looking good! It is fun to make sawdust.

You have it right. Either a small bandsaw or a benchtop sander. It helps to scribe a line at the cut point. I made small jigs to scribe at 3/8 and 1/2" with a regular pencil.

Good suggestion. Thanks.

Public Service Announcement: The current project requires 42 yellowheart dowels, 5/16" diameter. Dowels on Demand is a Canadian company that makes a wide range of diameters in 50 or so wood species. Shipping is $25, but the $/ft is very reasonable. $100 later, I have a lifetime supply of red, black, green and white dowels in various diameters. Dave threw in a bunch of shorts of ebony and red wood that I have never heard of. So if you need perfect circles for eyes or flower centers, DoD might be your answer.

I will second Transtint dyes. In my furniture building days, I got tired of board color mismatch and needing just one more board of a certain color. So I bought more curly maple than I will ever use and tint it as the client desires. My family likes Golden Brown in 100% and 200% concentrations, but it is an easy way to make green, blue and red wood. The mixed dye is kept in test tube vials labeled with "drops per vial". It doesn't take much. On light woods, first raise the grain with water, then lightly sand with 400grit. I also tried Mixol paints from Woodcraft, but did not like them much.

I have been seriously delinquent in checking this site. Hosting an eclipse RV gathering, four grandkids for a month, drilling new community water wells. But the house is clean and I can get back into the shop. The sanding stars look like this, except about 2" diameter with a 1/8" shaft. I bought them from Klingspor. The 120 grit are best for shaping really tight inside curves. They also work well for gentle edge round overs. I also love their 6" sanding mops and finish each piece with a 120 grit, then a 180 grit as a final burnish. All the best.

Wonderful sense of depth to this piece.