Number 7

Early this spring as I was helping my neighbor cut firewood, we cut down a few maple trees. I saved a couple of twisted branches, thinking I might carve them into smoking pipes. Maple burns with a fragrant smell, and makes a pleasant burning pipe.

I never did do anything with those branches -- I quit smoking nearly 3 years ago, and really don't need to tempt anyone else to smoke -- but a month or so later, I thought of the other branches and tree tops still out in the woods as material for a stool.
I went out and got them one day, and started scraping the bark off of them. Silly me, I should have realized that after a month, the bark would be stuck on those branches like it would never come off. Fortunately, we're north of Duluth, Minnesota here, and we had several cold and rainy days right in a row when we didn't even WANT to go outside and do anything. My dad came and helped me scrape bark on those maple sticks. Finally, we had them clean.

Back in the '90's I visited Jamaica, and some wood-carving artists told me of scorching wood in a fire to blacken it. Then, any carving that is done into that wood shows white, in contrast to the black surface. I tried that, and found that maple works very well for the purpose, as it is very hard, and also contains a sweet sap -- so the scorched black surface can be polished with steel-wool and a rag, and doesn't rub off onto your hands or clothing.
It was too wet outdoors to scorch the wood over an open fire in the fire-pit as I wanted to do, but I was able to use the wood-stove inside. A couple of the sticks burned right through, and I had to toss them into the fire. There were enough left, though, to finish a stool.
The seat for this stool is from some of the Western Fir I'd found thrown behind the garage. There was a knot in this piece around which the wood curved in an interesting pattern. However, the knot later broke out, causing no small difficulty in repairing it.
Nevertheless, this stool is for sale for $65. If you're interested, please contact me through the comments section of this blog, or by email, at lewagner2002@yahoo.com. Reference: Stool Number 7. Sorry, this stool is already sold.
(There are two photos below, each from a different angle.)
For general info about stools, please see Introduction.