John Mordus has been busy with "Under the Sea" projects

The last post we created for John was focused on his shop and garage signs he made.  Now he's back with 2 more projects that have gone in a totally different direction... Under the Sea. 

"Used your "Under the Sea" for a couple of things for my daughter's wedding
on the ocean beach."

"First one - took a piece of 4' rough birds eye maple, cut it in half and glued them together. Thought it looked pretty good so I left the edges as they were untrimmed."

The untrimmed edges really give a worn look and add to the piece.  It would have been a shame to remove them... good call in our opinion. 

"Second one - 3 pieces of scrap maple glued up, a 5x7 cheap unfinished picture frame, and your project pieces.  Don't think it turned out all bad."

We are with you on that, it does look very nice!  Great idea to use the models in the way that you did.  Gives you the illusion you are looking at a small section of the bottom of the ocean.

John also sent us in a bit more information on his projects - 

That last item in the list... that's the special ingredient in using any of our CNC projects, but we do try to give you a little help with the Project Sheet and Food for Thought ideas for each project.

Note: John used our first installment of the Under the Sea Series.  There are currently 3 CNC projects in the series that were designed, from the star, to work very well together. 

Thank you John, again,
for sharing one of your finished projects with us!

For more Customer Focus posts click here! 

James Patton and his Praying Cowboy project!

You might remember James Patton from his previous Shop Notes post where we highlighted this wonderful Thanksgiving sign and a couple of his other pieces.  Well his is back with another very impressive piece...

"Thought I’d share my latest semi finished piece from your western collection."

"So, I used a sun bleached stain first to try and deaden the grain, then went over it with early American. After it dried, dry brushed some colonial maple on the bottom from the skyline down. Still need to semi gloss it, but I think it's coming along alright...About and 11" x 22"...I want to say it was a 22 hour carve with a 1/16” bit..."

That's a small bit for such a big piece but we think the time it took to CNC it certainly paid off in the end. WOW... what a great looking finish!

"Now, I don't like the grain in mahogany, but it was all I had in the garage, and I was anxious to carve another one of your fantastic models."

We never noticed the the grain at all... looks perfect!

Finished Pice - Updated 

"Here’s a pic of the finished piece. After all was said and done, I went over parts of the carving with and ebony stain to draw out some of the recess in the mountains and the frame, and then just to take some of the orange out of the main detail. Then I sprayed it with a few light coats of deft semi gloss wood finish. Hope I’ve done your model justice."

James... you surely have done it justice.  Hard to believe it could look any better than the first image you sent... and that extra touch makes everything pop! 

Thank you James, again,
for sharing one of your finished projects with us!

For more Customer Focus posts click here! 

Don's been hacking around again!

We always like getting hacks from customers and this simple little hack really turned out great!

Don Harding used 3 different projects to create this layout for a farrier service:

The sign is 5/8" x 4" x 11 1/2" made from black walnut and finished with matte Rust-Oleum Painters Touch.  He used a font called Narkism and painted black to have the lettering stand out.

"Having different Packages Is Wonderful for the HACKS"


Thanks again Don for sharing your work with us!

For more Customer Focus posts click here!