Who We Are
The Chowderwood family is a little group of four that includes me, my wife, a silver lab that we got from Operation Kindness, and a little tabby cat that we brought in when she was a feral kitten.
…and no, they aren’t exactly buddies …not yet.
I cut out the pieces of my first project several years ago in the woodshop at work, but was only able to indulge in the creative process after I retired not long ago.
With the help of an encouraging and supportive wife, I started gradually putting together a woodshop in the garage.
How It All Started
Before Chowderwood was ever a thought in my mind, when my son got a Kamodo style grill, he asked me to help him build a table, like a picnic table, that would accommodate his grill with plenty of surface area to work his grilling and smoking magic.
With the photos he sent me of what he had in mind, and with a little looking into what other people had already made, we figured out a simple design that he was happy with, one that was not too complicated for us to build together.
Sometime after that...
…a coworker announced to me that she was getting married.
I wanted to give them a gift for their wedding, but didn’t really know what it would be.
It’s hard enough to shop for someone, particularly when I’m not much of a shopper to begin with. Besides, I had only met her fiance only a short time before.
I thought long and hard.
She told me they play a lot of board games, and that some of the boards are designed using the hexagon as part of the theme.
Hmmm…… Honeycombs??
I was intrigued...
…but I didn’t know how to go about it, or what to do next.
In a photo editing software I tried to make a design that had a dimensional effect. It looked pretty good, but could I make the same affect work using wood?
With a laser engraver I made a pattern out of masonite just to see how the pieces would fit together.
Cut a bunch of pieces out of walnut, cherry and maple, glued them together, and this is what happened..…
Why the name Chowderwood?
I want to make different kinds of pieces using various kinds of media, not just wood, much in the same way as there are different kinds of chowder–clam chowder, seafood chowder, vegetable chowder, corn chowder…
After tossing out lots of potential names, I liked the sound of chowderwood the best.