For 2010, Dennis has chosen a colorful roof, perch, and finial to highlight this simple bird house turned from Colorado Aspen. A variety of colors creates a luscious mixture in bright candy colors.
The birdhouses are a limited production run, which will be available at the LoMere coffee house in Monument, or from Dennis: 719-481-8754.
Woodturners will note that each house has 5 turned elements: upper finial, roof, body, perch, and lower finial.
Photo: One of Stuart Mortimer’s classes on cutting twists and spirals, September 2010
A few months ago, Doc Thode celebrated his 90th birthday with many of his woodturning friends. Dennis heard about the birthday party from Lee Carter, and realized that it was time to place his order for a 1/3 scale high chair for his youngest grandchild.
Doc called Dennis last week to invite us up to his house. He has lived in an old Victorian house a few blocks from the CSU campus in Ft. Collins for quite some time. It suits him to keep his tools in the basement, his books all around him, and the furniture that he makes employed with the various duties of furniture. A special delight in the house are the many lamps made from useful bits and pieces of other things–barrels, pipes, fancy clamps, ironwork, and other bits of industrial leftovers.
Each of the full size pieces of furniture appears to have it’s twin at 1/3 scale perched on top of it. It took a few minutes for me to discover the smaller piece on top. Doc waited patiently, and then enjoyed the discovery at least as much as I did. There is a writing desk, and there is a scaled version; there is a Victorian card table with a rotating top, and there is a scaled version. There is an antique corner cupboard, with just one of the three scaled copies remaining. There is a 1/3 scale highboy chest and companion mirror made to scale. There are cradles, desks, and pie-crust tip-top tables. But most of all, the house has the famous Windsor chairs and the caned rocking chairs for which Doc Thode is known worldwide.
Doc’s mother was a successful antique dealer in Denver. He began making the 1/3 scale chairs for displays of antique dolls. She also gave him an old chest of drawers covered in gray paint. He cleaned it up and repaired it, discovering that it had lovely cherry casework and solid tiger maple drawer fronts. It is upstairs in the bedroom, now, with a 1/3 version on top of it. According to Doc, this piece of furniture started it all, and he has never looked back.
Doc is a renegade among the woodturning crowd. He works on a metal lathe, and fabricates many of his own tools. He never joined the AAW. He particularly enjoyed meeting Bill Jones and Allan Batty, because they grew up in the traditional turning shop, learning to create accurate duplicates in short order. Doc uses a story stick to create the numerous spindles that he needs for a windsor chair. He cuts the coves with a round file so that they are all identical dimensions. He doesn’t sand, because sanding removes the crispness of the tiny beads and coves. He doesn’t have any interest in turned bowls.
For Doc, the fun of creating furniture has always come from the challenge of figuring out the construction, and then finding (often making) the tool to do the job. He has enjoyed making tools and jigs for Lee Carter.
Doc has taken great care to create historically accurate Windsor chairs. He maintained an extensive correspondence with John Kassay in order to make the scale chairs in the correct manner. In the beginning, for example, he was wedging the tenons for all of the spindles in the back of the chair. In fact, most historic chairs only had the center five wedged, in order to preserve the strength of the curved back rail.
Everywhere in Doc’s house the joy of disciplined creativity shines forth. He has been making furniture for almost eighty years, and kept his standards at the very top of the craft.
–Kay Liggett
Some folks have inquired about purchasing one of the natural edge bowls. Dennis makes them in batches from freshly-cut trees, so the inventory of bowls depends upon the availability of good trees. For this winter, bowls from cherry and ash are for sale in the M.A. Doran Gallery in Tulsa, OK, during the Holiday Sale which runs through January 2nd.
Dennis will look for new trees during January in order to produce another batch of bowls with bark. Generally, he is able to find cherry or ash in northwest Missouri, which has more hardwood trees than Colorado. The winter-cut trees hold the bark better. This is one of those works of art that takes both art and science! When you see a natural edge bowl that you like, get it, because the grainlines will probably never be repeated in a subsequent bowl. These are unique collaborations between the woodturner and Mother Nature.
Caring for a natural edge bowl: It’s best to keep it out of direct sunlight, which will darken the wood. Choose only light-weight, non-liquid contents! If the surface needs polishing, use a high-quality paste wax, applied very thinly and delicately rubbed out. The original finish was ‘Renaissance Wax.’ Contact Dennis if you have questions about caring for any of your woodturnings.
For 2009, Dennis has made a traditional icycle ornament with sea urchin shells and holly.
The urchins are a delicate seashell that has been stabilized and painted with iridescent paints. The finials are turned in three pieces too conserve holly, which is a very white, and relatively scarce wood. The ornaments are 6″ tall, with shells up to 2″ wide.
The urchins are sometimes used upside down by woodturners, but Dennis prefers the Victorian look of the rightside-up shell.
Merry Christmas to All, and to All a long night in the woodshop!
How do you commemorate an up-and-down year like 2009? The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals chose the yoyo as the perfect gift. Dennis turned the yoyo’s from face-grain cocobolo, using a special jig developed by Nick Cook. The boxes were made by Jim McCord of Excelsior Springs, MO, and laser-engraved with the organization’s logo by Dennis Voth of Colorado Springs.
In January 2009, Dennis continued producing turnings from a fresh cherry tree cut down in Missouri by Greg Paige. Natural edge bowls sold well at the ‘3 from the Rockies’ show at Living Arts of Tulsa in November, so Dennis decided to continue working with this form. In February, while attending the Desert Woodturning Roundup, Dennis found a bowl in a Scottsdale gallery made by Bert Marsh. That piece inspired him to return to the shop and explore the nuances of turning a foot on the natural edge bowls.
This interest in natural edge turning began in 2008, when the Pikes Peak Woodturners took on the Empty Bowls fundraiser as a service project. The club provided over 100 bowls for the event. Dennis made about 30 of those, and then just kept turning, as he continues to refine the shapes. The winter provides good woodshop time for Dennis in Monument, Colorado, where snow stays on the ground for weeks at a time.
In March, Dennis demonstrated general twist work for the Denver club, and skew chisel and turning a practice stick for the Pueblo woodturning club. He finds that many woodturners entering the craft in the past few years have skipped spindle work and skew chisel control. With renewed interest in architectural and furniture applications, there is a renewed demand for these skills.
Dennis offers lessons in tool control to members of the Pikes Peak Woodturners as one of mentors of the club. During February and March, he provided hands-on tutorials in both thread chasing and use of the skew chisel.
April and May will require considerable travel time for Dennis. He will be demonstrating at the Southern States Symposium (see Events listing) April 24-26, and then for the Palmetto Woodturners in early May. After that, he has a class scheduled at the John C. Campbell Folk School. During the gaps in the schedule, he will visit with Nick and Kathy Cook, and find time to join in the camaraderie at Nick’s studio in Marietta, Georgia.
In June, Dennis will be demonstrating at Ft. Collins and the Pikes Peak Woodturners will be preparing for their first all-club show, opening at the Manitou Springs Business of Arts Center on July 3rd.
In early August, Dennis will host Nick Cook for demonstrations and classes on the Front Range of Colorado.
Dennis hopes to make another wood-gathering trip to Missouri and a fishing trip to Tincup, Colorado in August or September. He also hopes to make a return trip to England in 2009 to visit some English woodturning friends.
If you are looking for a demonstrator for a club or symposium, give Dennis a call at 719-481-8754 to check the availability of dates for your organization.