Here are a few project updates for my new woodworking projects this year. I tried to make a few new ideas including a burning log lamp and wood sided bags. I hope you enjoy the update!
Fall Woodworking Update

Here are a few project updates for my new woodworking projects this year. I tried to make a few new ideas including a burning log lamp and wood sided bags. I hope you enjoy the update!
Here is a quick update of a few of my recent woodworking projects from this spring and summer. The coffee table, sofa table, jewelry box, and magnetic knife block are made from black walnut wood which my great-grandfather cut and milled decades ago from our family farm in southern Minnesota. The oak desk/breakfast table is made from live edge wood that we milled with a chainsaw from an old dead oak tree on the same farm/woodlands of our family. The interesting character to the wood is from partial rot, weather damage, and insects and makes for a very unique piece.
This end table is made from a chainsaw cut naturally fallen oak tree from southern MN. The edges are chiseled free of bark and rot and dried for over a year. The crack which opened up during the drying process has been held together by three black walnut butterfly inlays for strength and decoration. The oak slab is mounted on raw steel legs which also brace the cracks in the wood. Around the edge is an Old Norse verse written in Elder Futhark runes from the Vǫluspá in the Poetic Edda.
The verse reads:
Vǫluspá 3
Ár var alda
þar er Ymir byggði,
vara sandr né sær
né svalar unnir,
jörð fannst æva
né upphiminn,
gap var Ginnunga,
en gras hvergi.
The Seeress´s Prophecy 3
Young were the years,
when Ymir made his settlement,
there was no sand nor sea,
nor cool waves,
earth was nowhere
nor the sky above,
chaos yawned,
grass was nowhere.
The English translations are from The Poetic Edda: A New Translation by Carolyne Larrington. Oxford University Press. 1996
My recent nerdy wood-burning projects including a Tree of Gondor end table, Yggdrassil/Branch and Root Tree, Tolkienesque Minnesota Map, Nazgul, and Gokstad Viking Ship wall decor pieces.
My most recent project was to make a variety of cutting and serving boards out of black walnut, oak, and cedar. Some of these boards are charred with a blow torch in an attempt at the Japanese Shou Sugi Ban style of cedar wood charring which I also performed on oak and walnut. The charring makes the wood UV, weather, rot, and bug resistant and makes for a unique look and interesting creation process.
Two of these boards have runic inscriptions of Gnomic/Wisdom sayings from Hávamál in the Old Norse Poetic Edda. The chosen verses for these boards deal with friendship and hospitality which I thought was most fitting for something which can be used for entertaining.
The axe/cleaver styled board has a verse which translates:
34. It’s a great detour to a bad friend’s house,
even though he lives on the route;
but to a good friend’s the way lies straight,
even though he lives far off.
Afhvart mikit er til ills vinar
þótt á brautu búi
en til góðs vinar liggja gagnvegir
þótt hann sé firr farinn.
The more board shaped example has the inscription:
47. I was young once, I traveled alone,
then I found myself going astray;
rich I thought myself when I met someone else,
for man is the joy of man.
Ungr var ek fórðum fór ek einn saman
þá varð ek villr vega
auðigr þóttumsk er ek annan fann
maðr er manns gaman.
The English translations are from The Poetic Edda: A New Translation by Carolyne Larrington. Oxford University Press. 1996