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Gear Bench

MarkWhitley6594

A supplier in Michigan called one day to say he was stopping by on his way south with some nice walnut slabs.  The next day, he arrived and a load of lumber was purchased.

In 2009, the original engine in my Volkswagen bus locked up, while having a new engine built, I disassembled the original and found the culprit…a seized bearing.  Since the crankshaft was of no use for an engine I set it aside for future use.

The Gear Bench is the marriage of walnut slab and Volkswagen crankshaft.  It is a beautiful marriage.  18″ x 25″ x 54″  2014

MarkWhitley6610

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The Rokker

MarkWhitley6511

I paced around the studio one day in September looking at my wood pile waiting for something to jump out at me. I needed to build a piece for an upcoming show. Finally, just like usual, I picked up a board, and then another, and another, and began to cut. I glued and clamped and waited, and eventually made a butcher block that I thought would make a cool coffee table.
Then, on a whim, I grabbed my carving grinder and made a chair seat out of that butcher block. There were four turned legs on the shelf, so I drilled mortises for them and found two pieces of walnut for the back uprights, then a piece of cherry with curved grain for the crest. How about rockers? More cutting, gluing, and waiting. How about two sets of rockers that would form both the base and the arms? A piece of leather could be drilled and dyed for the back, and sand, sand, sand.. So it went until “The Rokker” was born.