And On the Ninety Third Day

He Created Light.
and he's not too sure about it yet....

Lots of photos so I'll do this in a couple of posts.

Started some three months ago when Will and I made the trip out to Aborica.  If you want to read about that then go here, if not then the take away shot is  the two pieces of wood that came out of it.

One of the pieces on the left will become a light for the kitchen.  There's been a temporary shop tube light forlornly hanging there since the inception.

Chose the tall red gum eucalyptus and ran it though the planer on a sled. It was warped pretty good so had to hold it in place to be able to flatten.

Dust collection couldn't keep up with the amount of shavings.

One end was naturally round so I cut the other to mimic with this saw.

It was difficult to tell the wood from the bark on the live edge so it took some effort to pick away at with various implements.

Shot quite a few coats of shellac and rubbed that out to a mirror finish.  At the same time I shot the other piece of wood, the walnut.  That was fortunate as a large wine job landed and I used both pieces of wood as surfaces and backgrounds.

A couple cropped for you vignettes

A couple of the walnut.

And there the project stopped so I could do the wine job for the next three weeks.
53 photos later of wine and food in restaurant and home sets we're back on it.

Time to move onto the light holding devices themselves.
A simple steambox was constructed which in the end I didn't use too much.

I resawed two wood species.  The leftover wood from the large patio doors I built...a salvage Ponderosa Pine from Camp Mather in the foothills and also some vertical grain Douglas Fir.
I was aiming for right around 1/32" thickness.  Anything more, light would be difficult to pass through, anything under that was impossible for me to cut.  It consistently miked out at 1/32" or a few thousand under.

To hold the actual light source I made some eggcrate crosses and then cut them round.

End of part One.