Awesome Wooden

Tim Rowett of Grand Illusions demonstrates a cool wall calendar which appears to be covered with random dots, dashes and slashes, but actually displays the date when a plastic mask is slid over the appropriate markings.

Product design student Ben Meyers and his dad David teamed up to build this amazing wooden chess set which lets them play on a spherical board. Magnets under each space allow the board turned without the pieces falling off.

An simply gorgeous bicycle with a frame handmade from black walnut and spruce wood. Its hollow insides reduce weight, provide vibration damping, and allow cables to be run internally. Available as a frameset or fully built.

Keep your facial hair tamed and tidy with miniFab’s Swiss Army-like grooming tool. It packs fine and wide-toothed combs as well as a dull blade for scooping their organic beard balm. Available in paduak, maple, walnut, or bamboo, all with bamboo blades.

After showing us how to make tools and build a house, John Neeman Tools presents the steps of completely handcrafting a traditional English longbow – starting from a log, and finishing with a functional weapon. Handmade bows are available for preorder from Neemanbows.com.

Each of these stunning wood mugs is handmade by Japanese craftsman Takahashi Kougei. The master woodworker turns castor aralia wood down to a thickness of just 2mm. Holds 9oz, and coated in food-grade urethane. Needless to say, it’s hand-wash only.

Artist and computer builder Love Hultén has outdone himself with his latest build, a 100% scale accurate Macintosh 128k replica, handcrafted from wood. Inside, it sports a Mac Mini and a modern LCD screen, making it both useful and a thing of beauty.

Each face on these wood blocks shows the name of an element, but when viewed through an augmented reality app, they come to life, showing how they interact. We only wish they had the whole periodic table in block form.

Engineer Amanda Ghassaei has come up with a method to use a laser cutter to create playable records using wood instead of vinyl. While the sound fidelity isn’t great, we’re still impressed that they play at all. Learn how at Instructables.

Let a bottle of wine become even more of a friend with one of these animal shaped, wood cut wine racks from Conte-Bleu. We find that the penguin always makes a good drinking buddy.

Cool hybrid shades from Woodwear Sunglasses. The Malibu Tortoise has a tortoise-shell frame combined with handmade bamboo temples. The lenses have 100% UVA/UVB protection.

A wooden blaster with a modern spin. Instead of cassette tapes, you can swap mods such as a USB port or a Bluetooth receiver. It has two 5.25″ woofers, two 1/2″ tweeters and a 50W amp.

As his name suggests, Sacramento designer Laserist enjoys making cool things with lasers. His nifty 3D cut-out puzzles in the shapes of guns are available in Uzi, Beretta and Revolver designs.

A 48mm watch just like the original Big Ben, but with all-wood dials and three interchangeable straps: wood links, black leather stitched, and smooth silicone bands. Waterproof to 3 ATM.

Youtuber rikkitikkiberger captured the long process of lathing that woodturner Soren Berger uses to make one of his unique lampshades. Don’t worry, he repurposes all that scrap material.

Andy Takemoto makes frames by hand, using different kinds of wood as well as bamboo, making each product unique. You can also have a message lasered into the sunglasses’ arms.

The ADZero is an Android phone with a case made of a solid block of 4-year old bamboo. Its rear camera has a ring flash that provides even illumination and minimizes shadows in images.

Jeffrey Stephenson’s latest custom computer is made of mahogany and aluminum. It has an Intel Core i3 CPU, a 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM. He’ll only make 5-10 units. Build process here.

Woodzee sells handcrafted sunglasses made from different kinds of wood – pear wood, zebra wood, dark wood – as well as bamboo. All models have polycarbonate lenses with 100% UV protection.

Wood Thumb finally gives us another option when it comes to decorative things to drape around our necks. Lightweight and flexible, each tie is made from a unique piece of reclaimed wood.

Artist Griffon Ramsey carves out the Gears of War logo from a tree trunk using a chainsaw in this fitting tribute to the third game in the series. Music is Martha Marin’s cover of Heron Blue.

At just 3.5″ x 5″ x 1.5″ the Mini Koo is the little brother of the Koostik, making it a more viable substitute for portable speakers, especially since it doesn’t need to be plugged in or recharged.

Designer Jan Gunneweg created this gorgeous wooden bicycle which not only has a solid wood frame, but asymetrical wooden wheels and natural-tone brown tires to go with.