Gift giving is a bitter sweet experience for me. Needing a gift for a birthday or other Holiday gives me a great reason to make something new. Plus there is some urgency built in so I have a reasonable excuse for my fanatical devotion to the project and lamentable neglect of other responsibilities. "Sorry honey, I can't take out the garbage this has to be done by Friday". On the other hand giving away my projects is like giving away my children.

This music box was a gift for my niece. The box is made from spalted cherry and Lyptus wood with a mother of pearl, lignum vitae and blood wood inlay. I rescued the cherry from a compose heap and the rest of the materials had to be purchased. Oh, well you can't win them all. You can't tell from the picture but surrounding the heart shaped mirror is some really cool blue velvet.

The design for the inlay was made by my wife who is much more gifted with a pen than I am. The movement plays Greensleeves when wound, which must be the best tune for a music box since all makers of movements for music boxes have it as a option. I was really surprised by how much louder the sound is when the movement is mounted. It's probably twice as loud in the box as in you hand.

I dovetailed the corners of the box and the top and bottom panels float in grooves cut into the sides. When I look at the pictures of the box I think that maybe dovetails look out of place on this piece but at the time I really wanted to give them a try. I guess this way I don't have to worry about it falling apart.

This black powder pistol and case is a wedding present I made for my brother and his wife in 2000. This was my first real fine woodworking project. Before this I had done some whittling and carving and other small projects but this was the first time I made something really worth having and keeping. The case is made of Chechen wood that I got at a local dealer. The pieces were left-overs from a flooring project in some expensive kitchen.

The project took forever as I recall. I had a heck of a time getting the glass to fit in the slots I made for it. It took several trips to the hardware store and finally the purchase of my own glass cutter before I could be satisfied with the results. Probably the single longest part of the project was all of the hand sanding I did. I built the project in my fathers garage using mostly a table saw for all of the cutting and joinery. The table saw was decent but the blade didn't leave nice smooth surfaces. I think I literally spent weeks sanding and re-sanding all the little pieces. This was long before I discovered the magic of the cabinet scraper. Now the same size project would take a few hours to scrape the saw marks out and finish sand.

I originally wanted matching pistols, after all this was a wedding present. However, after I started it became clear that two pistols just wasn't going to happen. Even though I "only" assembled the pistol from a kit it still took quite a while to polish all the metal parts and fit them together. I took all the parts to a local gunsmith for bluing. I envisioned a really deep dark blue like I had seen on a really nice old S & W model 27 once. What I got instead is a jet black finish. I'm not really sure if the color comes from the steel the gun is made out of or the bluing process. It looks pretty good and it was certainly well done but it was not what I had in mind. I think that it is a good thing I gave this to my brother.

If I still had it (believe me I have had moments of givers remorse), I would be tempted to "fix" some of the little imperfections that couldn't be helped considering my skill and experience level and the fact that I absolutely wanted it done close to the wedding. And it's not like it's gone for ever I can visit almost when ever I want. Also, I have noticed that at some point I get sick of looking at a project and I need to be done even if there are a couple of flaws remaining. These pictures were taken a few weeks ago the last time I visited the gun ...I mean my brother and his family.

Spalted Cherry grips for the Ruger New Model Super Blackhawk

Curly maple grips for the Ruger New Model Super Blackhawk with a Bisley style grip frame.