Awesome Wood

Burls Art is back with another creative guitar build. This time, he made a unique electric guitar with a 3D depth illusion with the same technique used to make some wooden cutting boards. Blake and his friend started by cutting maple and walnut boards into strips of varying thicknesses, then stacked, glued, and cut them into wedges to create the pattern.

Mike from Modustrial Maker got his hands on some Mexican Logwood stumps and decided to use them to make a coffee table. After cutting the wood into even lengths, he set them into an epoxy bath. A cross-section of each tree can be seen through the tabletop while the stumps provide support. It took a lot of effort, but the end result is worth it.

Handmade wood bowls are typically created by turning a block of wood on a lathe. But in this video from Taku Woodcraft, he shows how a miter saw can cut a perfectly smooth bowl shape. Working with a loose piece of wood under a power saw is dangerous, but it appears he had a short dowel under the board to keep it centered. Still, don’t try this at home.

If you’ve played Minecraft, you know to steer clear of Creepers. These bespeckled hostile mobs will blow you to smithereens. The Slow Mo Guys dropped by the Colorado School of Mines with a real-world version of the explosive enemy and detonated it in front of their high-speed camera. After a small test, they got a much bigger boom from a charged Creeper.

Maker Neil Paskin returned to his workshop to build another great piece of functional craft. He fabricated this vintage-style industrial chair using hand-cut and bent steel for its legs and support structure and gently curved wood for its back and seat. We love how he made his own plywood from reclaimed floorboards.

Etsy seller The Hrdwood makes these elegant wooden headphone stands that put your over-the-ear cans in a place of honor instead of lying on a tabletop or stuffed into a drawer. They come in two versions – a smooth arch or a stair-stepped tunnel design. Each stand is handmade from your choice of walnut or light ash wood.

Leander’s premium valet tray is made from hardwood and lined with Italian leather. Its large main space is great for wallets, keys, and eyeglasses, while its side compartment holds a pen, pocket knife, or wristwatch. It comes in black, Pacific Blue, Emerald, or camouflage leather. They also sell a matching desk mat, coaster, and pen holder.

The Chiefs might have walked away from this year’s Super Bowl with the Vince Lombardi trophy, but that award has nothing on this handmade trophy by artist Blake McFarland. He crafted this beautiful scrap wood football sculpture for his pals who beat him at fantasy football. While he’s an expert at carving, Blake used the project to learn how to turn wood on a lathe.

KARVD’s compact desks save floor space by attaching to your wall and folding up when not in use. Each is made from baltic birch wood and provides storage cubbies, a circular corkboard, and a fold-out laptop desk surface. The desks also have a built-in smartphone stand and pass-throughs for cords. They come in several eye-catching designs.

This beautiful ceramic mug from Ecletticos is a truly special way to sip your coffee or tea. Each is handmade with a unique kiln glazing process to give it a patina finish reminiscent of rusty metal. It has a curvy wood handle and holds up to 18 oz. of liquid and is made using food-safe materials. It’s not dishwasher or microwave safe, though.

Instead of telling time, Digital Horology’s LunaKron 2.1 clock displays the current moon phase. It uses GPS data to calculate the date and which phase to show. It’s made from acrylic and fiberboard, and the photographic moon is backlit by 256 LEDs. They also make the LunaKron 1, which has backlit cutouts representing each of the moon’s eight phases.

Keyboard enthusiast and woodworker Barrett Creative makes beautiful wood keyboard cases. They’re sold in kit form with a KL-90 circuit board, encoder(s), and a matching wooden knob(s). They’re currently available in Woodland, Rustic, and Infernum kits. Keycaps, switches, and stabilizers are not included. Hipyotech has a hands-on look at one of these keyboards.

Milk crates are a great way to store records and books. But the plastic ones look really cheap. For a more refined look, consider these wooden crates from WAAM. They’re made from high-density birch plywood and offer a playful take on the ones you probably shouldn’t have swiped from the alley behind the grocery store.

You can cut pieces of wood to meet perfectly in a corner using a miter saw. But there are other scenarios where you need to work around things that make it more challenging. Entertainer Chaz Bruce re-shared this video of carpenters dealing with tricky corners while he and his son reacted to the cuts. That four-way pipe joint was so satisfying.

Builder John Malecki wanted a new media center for his office. Rather than designing the cabinetry himself, he turned to generative AI to come up with the concept. After playing with a few prompts, Midjourney came up with a design. Its organic shapes caused construction challenges, but John and his team did a great job bringing the real-world version to life.

We’ve seen tables that use resin or glass to create the illusion of water. Woodworker Screaming Donkey built a coffee table with a real liquid-filled center. He started out with some olive wood burl which he de-barked, cut into pieces, bathed in resin, and gradually refined. After that, he filled it with water, mica, glycerin, and pigments, agitated by magnetic stirrers.

Greg Blanpied makes CNC-machined and laser-cut functional art fabricated using parametric math and geometry. Among his amazing pieces is this elegant bowl, which acts as a zoetrope when filmed or spun beneath a strobe light. He’s also created a zoetrope vase.

Berlin-based artist Florian Goerlitz makes incredible mechanical artworks that have appeared in large installations and at festivals. This smaller piece is notable because it creates so much movement using just a single motor. Made almost entirely from wooden gears, it has three arms that move around its center, undulating like tentacles on an octopus.

Paul Jackman has made a lot of drink coasters out of recycled pallet wood. This time, he made a bunch of coasters that look exactly like real pallets. After designing a 1:10-scale model on his computer, he got to work fabricating 200 of the tiny replicas, complete with laser-engraved logos. You can grab a 2-pack on the ISOTunes website for $50.

Despite only firing rubber bands, we would not want to be on the business end of this wooden minigun. Generic Woodworking shows off the incredible amount of blood, sweat, and tears it took to build this impressive toy weapon. It uses parts from a lawn trimmer and a belt sander to drive its mechanism, and makes an unnerving popping sound as it fires off rounds.

This unique wall clock is made up of more than 300 components, which come together to accurately tell time. It features numerous wood gears, and a hot air balloon that rapidly descends at the top of each hour then rises as each minute ticks by. Designed for advanced builders, with an estimated 11-hour build time.

Etsy shop Fever Dream Supreme makes this giant-size d20 for Dungeons and Dragons players. Each 10-inch, 5-pound die is handcrafted from whitewood and hot-branded numbers on its 20 sides. It makes a great display piece or a hidden storage box if you opt for the removable panel. Available with or without stain or numbers.

ND Woodworking Art has created some amazing kid-scale vehicles for his son to ride in. This time, he spent 70 days building a mini tank with a steel frame, a wooden body, and motorized tracks. The design is based on a Swedish Army Stridsvagn 103. We’re not sure if carrying all those fuel cans on the exterior would be a good idea in a battle, though.