The shop is located near our home out in the country south of Purcellville, VA.
Artistic woodturning, the making of pens, bowls, and the like, has long been my focus. It has been great fun and the income from craft show sales and sales to individuals has pretty much paid for my hobby. However, as of early December 2005, I changed the focus of Red Oak Hollow from the artistic to the architectural. I have purchased an architectural woodturning business from a fellow woodturner who is retiring to move to Colorado. To better reflect the nature of the business, I have also changed the name of my business to Red Oak Hollow Lathe Works. Now that the work of preparing my new shop on our property south of Purcellville, VA, has been pretty much completed, we have moved his equipment from his shop to mine. We were only down for about five days, then back in business.
A variety of sizes, but all the same pattern
It is all custom work and includes things such as balusters, newels, finials, large porch posts, and such. With this Italian-made Centauro T-5 copy lathe, I am able to duplicate balusters, newels, table legs, and other woodturnings so that I can match pieces used in restoration or do multiples for new construction. But if it doesn't fit on the Centauro, I hand turn it on one of the other lathes in the shop.
This is the heart of the operation, allowing me to duplicate balusters, newels, table legs, and the like from a single pattern. It is much like a huge key-making machine with two cutting heads.
With the shop in the background, you can see four twelve foot long cedar porch posts leaning against a white oak tree in the yard. These were turned from 6 x 6 Western Red Cedar for a restoration project in Florida.
I want to show you some images of things which I have made for builders and architects. These long porch posts leaning against the tree in the picture to the right are twelve feet long and six inches square. I turned four of them for a restoration project in Florida. The wood is Western Red Cedar and the shop smelled great for days!
Support for a bistro-style granite counter top extension in a new Virginia home.
This oak post was quite a job. First, it is solid red oak, eight inches in diameter, which required planing several 8/4 oak boards, then gluing and clamping them for several days to dry before turning the post from the glued-up wood. I added a base and a cap of red oak and fluted the sides of the column with twenty 3/4" wide flutes. The piece is now being used to support a very attractive bistro-style counter extension from the granite kitchen counter in a new home in Northern Virginia. I am pretty confident that an 8" solid oak column will hold that granite with ease.
My work now is what you have seen -- balusters and newels, posts, finials, and more. I have produced some original architectural work but most of the designs have been taken from either actual pieces or from architectural drawings which I copied. Sometimes it is just an idea which I "turn" into reality, but mostly I use an existing piece which I then copy, making any changes as requested by the customer. Along the lines of original pieces, please take a look at the three articles on academic maces which I have made for three colleges around the country. Those are posted below this article on the main page of this web site.
This may look like a giant coaster, but it is a 42" diameter railing for a home.
This was particularly interesting to turn. My customer glued up sections of beech to make a full circle about 3" wide and 42" in diameter, then screwed on a 44" round piece of MDF to back it. I attached a large faceplate to the MDF which then attached to the outboard end of my Oneway lathe. It took all afternoon to turn this piece as I had to take a small cut, then stop the lathe to see how it looked, take another small cut, etc. The result is a railing ring which can be segmented to fit into the installation. The builder is installing a railing along an open hallway above a living room and instead of having a square corner where the two railings meet, it is a curve. The builder will use one quarter of this ring to join the two pieces of straight railing. I have done several pieces of similar ilk. This is hand rail. I have also done molding to curve around a window, bar rail to make the turn at the corner of the bar, and other similar pieces which are not readily available in a catalog. It has been unique turning to say the least.
New spires designed from an extremely old and weathered original
The caption under the picture on the left here tells the story. There wasn't much left of the original spire to guide me in designing the new ones of mahogany. A few clues, though, gave me just enough to be able to design and turn new spires in what I believe is the same pattern as the original. I could not tell what the original wood was without cutting into it, which I did not want to do, but these are of mahogany, a very weather-resistant wood suitable for outdoor applications.
These 18" balusters are made of Douglas fir. There are 250 of them and they are just under 4" square.
So you can see that my focus is now very much on the architectural, but this will still be a great place to come for gifts for special occasions as I hope to continue making the artistic things which have gotten me into woodturning in the first place. I look forward to hearing from you with any comments you may have about this work, and especially with any requests for the products which I am now making! Find how to contact me at
Contact with Red Oak Hollow... Thanks so much for taking the time to look through this web site. I have very much enjoyed being able to showcase my work here for you.