The bar is open

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Excellent! I love it. Wish my wife would let me have some modern furniture in the house.

[Workman]

They say that it's what is inside that counts - but you've made it a tough choice! Beautiful work.

[chopnhack]

While the beautiful and excellent craftsmanship impressed me, I have to admit that I was more intrigued by the front room location of the bar and pool table. If I were to guess, I'd say you're not married with children....

LOL I too was wondering that - Carlos, it looks like you have the bachelor pad going on in that photo - front door, bar, pool table. Good job!

[Carlos]

Strangely enough, SHE bought the pool table, and SHE wanted us to have fresh beer at home. We're both beer snobs, and we brew along with a friend of hours (he's the real brewmaster, I just help him when I'm directed to). The kid loves having a pool table too. Not your average woman I suppose. She does wood work herself, and last month she insisted we needed a new bandsaw instead of "wasting money on useless Christmas trinkets."

Thanks, everyone, for all the positive commentary.

Oh, and yes, she has a sister, however her sister is a total opposite. Mom though, not bad looking and not all that different...

[John Hunter]

Very nice!

[footprintsinconc]

WOW, WOW, WOW! very nice. just amazing.

one question though, did you finish the t-slots and the light wood bands differently or are they inlays of a different type of wood?

[Carlos]

The light wood bands are all Zebrawood, and I think they all came from the same board. They are all finished the same way. If there are color variations it's probably because of the camera (and I did use two different cameras, in a wide variety of lighting situations). In person they look the same.

[SHADOWFOX]

Those look fantabulous!! Excellent work and thank you for sharing!

[mater]

Excellent work. It is beautiful.

[bluzcat]

Beautiful work Carlos! I really like that margarita salt dish. I've been looking for some projects to try out my new lathe chuck and I may have to get that a shot.

[SARGE..g-47]

Very.. very nice, Carlos. The exotics are quite beautiful, but as you found out.. some can be cantankerous to work with. I love the look of wenge, but it's a bear to work with as you found out. Bubinga is another of my favorite exoctics, but most of them are out of a "poor boy's" price range.

You did a nice job of veneering also, which is something I have never done in 36 years. Another reason I usually stay away from exoctics with their price range. I have enough difficulty working with solid wood.

Well done...

[Carlos]

. Bubinga is another of my favorite exoctics, but most of them are out of a "poor boy's" price range.

Funny you mention that, we're just about to start a bedroom set with some Bubinga. As you said, it's pricey, so we're going to use it for drawer fronts and hard maple for the structure. The drawer fronts are the most visible, so we can make a lot of Bubinga visible for minimal cost by resawing a 4/4 board. We love the look of hard maple too, so that will be the sides and structure.

. I've been looking for some projects to try out my new lathe chuck and I may have to get that a shot.

I didn't use the chuck for this, though it might look it. First I did the lit on its own. Then I blued up the Zebrawood/Wenge for the dish, and put it in the lathe as usual. I hollowed the center, then trimmed down the center raised portion to clear the lid using a parting tool as close as I could to the live center. Then I used a Fein tool with a flush cutoff blade to remove the remaining piece. That left a rough surface so I cleaned it up by holding the bowl upside down over my router table with a straight bit.