Spalted Alder wood turnings by Herb Tieszen

Check out these neat wood turnings brought in by customer Herb Tiezen and his son Jerry Tieszen.

They purchased 2" thick Spalted Alder lumber, cut it up and glued up to make these great little wood turning blanks.

Many customers are amazed how much less expensive Spalted Alder is than run-of-the-mill Spalted Maple.

$12/BF is a screaming deal for a spalted wood and when you actually set any of these spalted species side by side (Maple, Alder, Beech, etc.), they all look pretty much the same and the biggest defining factor is usually price.

Obviously if your trying to match existing material, staying with the same species might be smart. Yet if all you want is a great looking spalted wood at a realistic price-Spalted Alder may be your answer.

Figured Bubinga Conoid Chairs

Aimee, Mike and Tim of Tassajara Design
with one of their figured Bubinga Conoid Chairs

Tassajara Design recently completed an 8 piece set of Figured Bubinga Conoid chairs for a client in Georgia. These chairs turned out great!

Mike selected two large Bubinga Slabs from a batch we recently received here at the shop and used pretty much all of the available material for the construction of these eight chairs

Mike with one of the large Bubinga slabs before he started constructing the chairs.

Personally we like the way Tassajara creatively used some of the figured sapwood throughout different parts of each chair. The sapwood seemed to be just as figured as the heartwood and its contrasting light color definitely gave the chairs a more organic feel.


Below are some pictures of the very first chair Tassajara completed in the set, enjoy-

Imagine a 8 of these guys in your dining room-

Now that is some figure!

Here you can see that use of the light sapwood we spoke about

Also as a side note-
Tassajara constructed an extra one for themselves which will be entered into the
"Design in Wood" competition at the San Diego County fair in June/July 2010.

Make sure to check it out if you have a chance, these pictures don't do the chairs justice! You have to see them in person to really appreciate the beauty of the wood and of the design.

Primavera Desk by Tassajara Design