Turning wood into forest

 

 

The only thing certain in our lives is uncertainty. Yup. You might have heard it numerous times in various versions. We never know what we stumble upon tomorrow. We cannot guarantee that we could fall in love with something or someone we didn’t even know, heard of or met before. We never know when or where an idea pops into our heads and drive us crazy. Nope. It’s not in our hands. It’s deeply embedded in our DNA.  

 

Though born in the family of wood workers, I was never introduced to wood working as my father preferred working with metal over wood. But somehow, it never left me. I had the opportunity to rekindle my relationship with wood in the unlikeliest of circumstances—during the Covid-19 pandemic. I was searching for the ways in which the scrap wood could be upcycled. As my mind was kept frozen all the time, basically, I sought the help of Google. Of the myriad ideas, wood turning connected to me as my dad possessed a metal lathe. Without waiting for further ado, I made some customized tools to transform the lathe for wood turning. 

 

As I don’t know the abcd’s of wood turning, I started with a simple project—turning trees out of scrap wood. The offcuts obtained while making the furniture served a great purpose. The idea is to use those discarded pieces to make something new. It’s like giving them a second life—starting with bare wood and stretching our limits to impart life into it. But it’s kind of strange though—just holding chisel on high spinning wood in certain angles could create such beautiful and useful things we may not have imagined before.  Though turning wood is fun, what started out as a pastime activity turned into a hobby. Luckily it’s a happy distraction. Here are some of the trees I turned till now - looks like I created a forest from wood.