transfer of energy
Black Walnut and Osage Orange BRL Poker Table Build part 1
Walking Man Sketches
Walking Man Eats Alfalfa Roots
Walking Man Listens To the Roots Talking To One Another
Walking Man Looks Backwards Into Time
Walking Man Hefting Bodark Roots and His Water Pot
Walking Man Encounters the Spirit of the Lord In a Night Heron
Night Heron Detail
Walking Man Finds Strength and Purity and the Morning Dew
Tools of the Mystic (The School of the Transfer of Energy Lexicon)
Ministers of Beauty (S.T.E. Lexicon)
Hyper-Symbolic Tools for Use in the Transfer of Energy (S.T.E. Lexicon)
Prints of “The Living Tree” Are Available for Sale
at the BaumWerk Etsy Store
Dear friends, I thank you for all of your kind words and interest regarding this new print of the Living Tree. I am grateful that it seems to have struck a chord with many of you. A number of you have made inquiries into when and if prints would be available to purchase. As of Friday, a limited number (there will be more as I continue to print the edition) have been listed on my ETSY store. I am selling these first fifteen for $125, after that the price will increase to $150. Click here to go to the listing. Please read more below for some details about the print, and thank you again for your support!
The image itself is 12″ wide and 22 1/2″ tall and is printed on French’s 100# Butcher Off White Dur-o-tone paper, which is 18″ wide and 25″ tall. French’s paper is American made in Niles Michigan.
The edition will be 1oo prints, which is the biggest edition I have ever made. Every single print is hand made by me on my Wepplo etching press in my Rose Hill, Kansas workshop. 
The print is made using three linoleum blocks, as a composite image. It took me over a year to design and carve the image into the blocks (although I was doing lots of other things during that year, besides carving linoleum).
Many hours of painstaking carving went into creating all of the details in The Living Tree.
The Tree and it’s roots are loaded with life, like this little owl. 
There are many spiritual and natural beliefs and dreams symbolically represented in this print. There are many things which I see and believe about who my God is, and also things which I strive to cultivate in my life and stewardship on the land. I don’t have many words as a companion for this image just yet, but perhaps in the future I may try to lay out those ideas for those who are interested.
As the Greening Begins
Walnut Timber Mantelpiece
The six and a half inch thick, 13 foot long walnut slab filled the shop as it came from the chainsaw mill.
Beam cutter on the old worm-drive
“rough-sawn” to the max
Using the “beam-cutter” to rip the slab into a six inch square timber
Pulling the saw at the end of the cut to save the last bit of slab for the corbels
Aluminum C-channel as a guide
start of the smoothing
a jack plane with a radius set to take heavy shavings
Now the joiner
pretty obvious
chopping out for a patch over a rotten knot
the same, fitted
filing the edges of a little copper butterfly template
bench-top with tools for making butterfly templates
variety of butterfly templates
Scribing the timber for butterflies to bind the main check
Routing out the waste
chopping the rest
right up to the knife line
ready for the joining
carving the corbels (my documentation fell off for most of this process)
mating the various natural edges of the corbels to the mantel
a little further back
fitting the opposite corbel
rough-cut cove on the left corbel
both corbels with coves-cut and awaiting final shaping
apply the final touches on the ends of the timber
“C” for the covenant
installed over the fire box, and the home-owner’s sandstone work.
I look forward to seeing it with the stone work done
Spoon of the Golden Ratio
Carved from figured hard maple, the bowl was composed around two golden ratio (1.618) spirals. 
Echo Water
Fumed White Oak
The above are eight turned pieces from a single 24″ section of a 24″ diameter white oak from Boaz, Kansas. The tree fell over and across the Van Horn Branch Creek about 10 years ago- We finally pulled the log out 2 years ago, and it has laid in my log pile since then, although I did mill a portion of it. The heart wood is still green, so these bowls were turned green and allowed to warp as they dried. Ultimately all the pieces were exposed to ammonia vapors (fumed) which reacted to the tannins in the wood, darkening the surfaces.
The Champion Table Build, Part 5: Carving and Inlay
sanding and refining the shape of the legs
carving some details into the lower horizontal member of the leg assemblies
“C” for Champion
the lower leg joints, reinforced with screws, concealed by pegs
cut flush and sanded
the legs are finished, awaiting only final sanding immediately prior to finishing
refining the shape of the arc, the brace between the leg assemblies
one of many facet transitions and chamfers across the arc
another of those transitions, in this case, the arcs contribution to the connecting joint
adjusting the shoulder of the arc where it meets the walnut of the leg assembly
a lot of enjoyment watching the play of light and shadow
lets of test fitting of the base
my son roughing out a billet of walnut for some stubby spindles. The spindles will connect the arc to the top-central horizontal rail connecting the leg assemblies, preventing any propensity to rack along the length of the table
here are the spindles in place as well as a bit of carving on the side of the arc
another view of the arc, upside down, an enjoyable shape- part moon, part smile, part rainbow, part horns, it is one of my favorite parts of this table
beginning work on the table-top again- softening the edges with a block plane
after making paper versions, laying out some walnut shapes that will be inlayed into the table-top
re-sawing bits of highly figured walnut for all of the special details
along with the decorative inlays, being positioned here are some butterfly-keys, which help to stabilize the splits and inclusions in the walnut making up the table-top
after determining the composition and placement, all the parts get some double-sided carpet tape…
…and are then stuck in place so that they don’t shift when their outlines are being scribed into the top with a knife
after everything has been scribed, the majority of the cavity is established with a small spiral carbide bit in the electric router
the rest of the inlay cavity is cut out with sharp chisels. The scribe-line is particularly nice at this stage, giving a positive registration for the tip of the chisel
there was a place on one of the walnut planks that had a corner that couldn’t get reconciled in the flattening stages without making it too thin- the remedy was a patch of really pretty walnut
clamps were used on the top, where they could reach whatever was being inlayed
cleaning the floor and corners of one of the recesses for those butterfly keys
glue and clamp…
a little congregation of butterflies ready to be made flush with the top, the crack itself, will get filled with epoxy, after the bark has been removed
cutting out some of the inlay cavities for the central design
lots of chopping up to the line
there are a lot of pictures of me hunched over the top of this table, because I was hunched over the top of this table a lot
piece by piece, being tapped into place with my indispensable two-sided rubber mallet
planing the first round of inlays fush to the surface
glueing up some ebony for the next round of inlay work
the elements of the central design positioned and ready
a few more ebony details being cut out at the scroll saw
the slow process of accurately scribing every edge with an “Exacto” knife
clearing out as much as possible with the router, carefully to stay just shy of my lines
my life for a good portion of October
ofter hours of knife, chisel, and dental tool work, the inlay cavity for the crown of thorns is about ready for the ebony
a modified dental tool in action clearing out the acute corners of the cavities, somewhat appropriate
…still hunched over…
some of the inlay uses molten sulphur… being melted here in a spoon
molten sulphur is an eerie and beautiful thing, if not pungent to the point of being toxic
poured into carved voids it marks a lovely luminous contrast to black walnut
also very porous- not so good for a table top- an improved sulfur inlay was devised. First grinding some sulphur crystals with mortar and pestle…
the sulphur pigment is then introduced to some two-part epoxy
the resultant paste is pressed into the top layer of the earlier sulphur inlay, filling the pores and yielding a slightly tougher surface
the inlay work done and all the other voids being filled with epoxy, final sanding has begun
as the process goes, there are many flaws in my inlay work that need to be addressed. Out come the pigments and filler
it is an enjoyable process that takes me into the realms of another of my lines of work
then more sanding
this marks the end of this second to last post in the building of the Champion Table, I won’t reveal the finished piece until it’s new owners have had a chance to see it in person. Thank you all for offering your support and comments, or just following along silently. I remain immensely grateful for the kind encouragement which each represents, and I look forward to sharing the finished piece with you all as well.
The School of the Transfer of Energy 