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And, following on yesterday’s post, here we have pop giving me a hand with the rolling ball sculpture project. I wanted to put a wood base underneath it so that it would be a little easier for the kids to pick up and move and possibly not quite so likely that they’d grab onto the frame itself and bend it. (I hope, anyway.) Plus, it eliminates the possibility of the bare wire scratching any tabletops.

I asked dad if he had any scrap, and my only desire was that it not be plywood, because the sandwiched nature of that wood looks unattractive when viewed from the edge, which this would show. Pop leads me over the the scrap box and says, “Well, here’s what I have – some pine…here’s some mahogany if that’ll work…” and he has real wood! I grabbed this kind of streaky-looking piece and said, “What’s this?”

“Oh, that’s some spalted maple a fella gave me. Most of it was too water damaged and I had to throw it out.”
It was awesome looking, but an extremely rough cut.
“Sure. I can plane it or maybe sand it.”

So here’s dad doing some sanding on the piece after we got it cut down to size. Turns out it’s going to need some planing, as it’s just too rough for the sander to do an adequate job, but it’s going to be awesome. Spalted maple has all these black lines in the grain where water got in and discolored it. It’s a very unique look. Can’t wait to show it to you guys when it’s finished!