After a few years I decided to go out on my own and started McAllister Woodworking. Then an opportunity to work at Will Vinton Studios came along and I put the custom furniture business on hold. I worked at the studio for 18^1/2 years as animator, set designer and builder and production shop supervisor. In 1998 my interest in wood turning, which had been building over the years, really took hold and I found myself working in a medium which allowed me to take the wood from its rawest form, a freshly cut log, to a finished form.

This transformation is a combination of my bringing out the natural beauty of the wood and creating a shape that works with and adds to that beauty. Each one of my pieces is one of a kind as no two sections of wood are the same. Each piece has unique features which influences the design.

Almost all of my wood comes from local trees that, for one reason or another, need to be removed. If this wood wasn’t rescued, much of it would end up as firewood or in the land fill. When I get my wood it is in log form, as big as possible but not so large as to be impossible to move. The freshly cut end grain is sealed, then the logs are put under cover out of direct sunlight, and out of the wind to protect it from degrading. When I am ready to rough out some bowls, I cut off as much as I can turn up in a day and take it into my shop to cut down into individual turning blanks. At this point the wood is very wet and “green” and may have as much as 200 percent moisture content.

I use green wood because it turns much more easily and creates less dust. It also speeds up the drying process by getting rid of everything that will not be part of the finished roughed out form. A rule of thumb for drying wood is a year per inch plus a year. So if you have a chunk of wood that is 4 inches thick, by this rule it would take 5 years to dry the piece. By roughing out while green I can get rid of a lot of waste wood right away and speed up the drying time to as little as 6 months under ideal conditions.

Generally I give the wood about a year to dry between rough turning and finish turning. When I get a moisture meter reading of 10 to 15 %, the wood is removed from my drying shed and put it into a heated room to dry down to 7 to 8 % which is about the dryness of wood in most homes. During this drying time the wood that was round when roughed out, will turn decidedly oval and distorted. By leaving the walls of a turned form overly thick (1– 1 1/2” thick depending on the size of the piece of wood) this allows me room to clean up the roughed out, dried form. It also gives me enough room to finesse the wood to the shape I am after.

Once I have returned the upper section of the outside and the entire inside, I remove the piece from the chuck that is holding it by the tenon at the foot. Then the piece is placed on a vacuum chuck to finish off the foot. While the piece is still on the lathe, I finish it with Walnut oil or mineral oil and bees wax. These oils are used because they are food safe and will not go rancid as many other food safe oils will. Also this finish is easy to keep up by simply rubbing a new coat of oil on as needed. With this done, I sign, date, and identify the type of wood used on the bottom of each piece.

Besides the Carnegie Center in Oregon City, I'm also respresented by the following galleries:

• Frank and Dunya Gallery, Seattle, Wa
• Hood River Jewelers, Hood River, Or
• Northwest Fine Woodworking Gallery, Seattle,  and Bellevue Wa
• White Bird Gallery, Cannon Beach, Or
• Wood Gallery, Newport, Or

Elm Bowl
6 ^3/4" x 4 ^3/4"
$265


Black Walnut Bowl
11 5/8" x 4 5/8"

$250

Myrtlewood Bowl
14" x 2^1/2"
$325

Elm Vase
6" x 8^1/4"
$345