Prodigal Ponderings RSS



Edge Grain Cutting Boards

  One of the alternatives we offer to our “end grain” cutting boards is a slightly less expensive but equally durable “edge grain” board.  As the term indicates, these boards use a different portion of the wood (edge) for your cutting surface.  Although these boards do not possess the same qualities of end grain they do offer some distinct advantages. First you get a far different grain pattern from the edge of a piece of wood than you do from the end.  (Below notice end grain top left, edge grain middle and lower left) Second, because less of the wood “fibers” are exposed, edge grain boards tend to hold their color longer than end grain. This can be particularly rewarding when...

Continue reading



Friendship: A Servant's Heart

This past weekend we enjoyed the sights, sounds and smells of festival life as we took our woodworking products for the first time to the Fall Fest at Candler Park located in Atlanta, GA.  The weather was gorgeous, which is typical for this time of year in North Georgia; our sales were good and we received a lot of positive feedback about  our work.  Combining this with several folks inquiring about our online store in preparation for the upcoming Christmas holidays led us to deem the weekend a success ,and the festival one we would gladly return to.   For those who have attended festival’s, it all looks pretty routine as you encounter one canopy tent after another stocked full of...

Continue reading



It's That Time of Year

 It's Fall.........officially.....and as we eye our calendars most of us are filled with a sense of  invigoration this time of year brings ,coupled with a vague sense that things are about to get a "little bit crazy".  The Holidays are careening toward us ,causing us to long to savor a few of the crisp, nostalgic days of Fall that hint at promises of football games, chilly nights, pumpkin pie and apple cider.  Here in the South Fall is a fickle thing... teasing us with crisp days here and there, then sending the temperature back up into the  80s to remind us that perhaps it's a little premature to be packing away the shorts and breaking out the sweaters. But we live for those...

Continue reading



Decisions

We had been looking forward to our vacation for a couple months and when the time finally arrived to prepare for our trip we had one major obstacle to contend with: Hurricane Irma.  Planning a vacation to Florida in the month of September is always risky since it is hurricane season, however we’ve done it before so we thought it worth doing again. Hurricane Irma was not just a threatening storm, it was billed as the largest and most dangerous storm to our hit our land in any of our lifetime. After watching the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and all the damage that storm did to Texas, this was not something to be taken lightly.  So we had a serious...

Continue reading



Jet Lathe 1221VS Review

I’ve been a lathe owner for a little less than a year so I am in no way qualifying myself as an expert.  That said, I have created several salt and pepper mills and chess pieces that have received high compliments so I am an active lathe user.   Like many of my “turning” friends I started by purchasing a rather inexpensive 12” lathe from Harbor Freight.  If you have about $80 to spend (even less with a HF coupon) and want to see if turning is your thing, I highly recommend this route.  I burned this lathe out after a few months trying to drill center holes in my ginders.   So, after a few weeks of pondering and...

Continue reading