The Phoenix Project

In the summer of 2013 my Dad brought me a present. He said, “Son, I’ve got a slab of wood that I think you should have. I think you’ll like it too.” Being an amateur wood hack I thought OK, fine with me. When he dropped it off I thought, “What am I going to do with this dirty grimy birdshit encrusted piece of wood?” I didn’t really look at it and just stored it away in my garage. Prior to putting the slab away I took a couple of pictures of it with my Boys standing in front.

Later that night I looked at the pictures and couldn’t believe what they were standing in front of. I knew the board might have interesting features but I wasn’t prepared for what I found.

The following afternoon I took an R/O sander to one corner of the board and sanded a three foot by two foot section of the slab. Then I applied some Tung oil to the area. When I saw what I had I was flabbergasted. It was the most amazingly beautiful grain pattern I had ever seen on a piece of wood.

I started to do a little research into this wood and found out it had lived for centuries prior to being cut down. The tree was felled by lumberjacks, using axes and hand saws, in the late 1800s or early 1900s.

The stump, left to rot in a field, was 18 feet tall and 8 feet across at the top. The reason the tree was cut where it was is because the local lumber mill couldn’t handle a tree larger than 8 feet in diameter.

The stump was eventually harvested by a man named Hank in the 1950s when he drove from Portland to McKinleyville, California. He cut the stump into a bunch of slabs and one of those slabs, 4 feet by 5 feet by 3 inches thick, got lost in the attic of his shop for decades. Now the slab is in my shop!

Today, only a limited amount of this remarkable redwood remains.

This slab, approximately 4 feet by 5 feet and 3 inches thick, is the foundation for the Phoenix Project.

As the slab was cleaned and worked, incredible grain patterns and figure were revealed. The wood displays beautiful movement, color, and character that make each piece truly unique.

When Hank passed away, my dad was given the old-growth redwood bar from Hank’s home. Years later, he passed it on to me. Made from the same remarkable redwood, it is now another piece of the Phoenix Project waiting to be transformed.

The Phoenix redwood is being transformed into heirloom-quality pieces. This Christmas snow globe is one example of what can be created from this extraordinary wood.