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Build It in to Win: Official Contest Rules

Clark Kellogg Wins Gallery Challenge

Gina Eide, web producer

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Winning piece. Clark Kellogg, aka Clarkatron, takes the prize for our Waste Knot, Want Knot gallery challenge with this garden bench.

Graceful curves. Kellogg used a coopering technique on the seat and used bent laminations to craft the curved supports and stretchers.

Sinker wood. Kellogg crafted the bench from reclaimed “sinker” cypress that he found at a mill in Ponchatoula, La.

Winning piece. Clark Kellogg, aka Clarkatron, takes the prize for our Waste Knot, Want Knot gallery challenge with this garden bench.

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Congratulations to Clark Kellogg, aka Clarkatron, of Houston, Texas who wins our Waste Knot, Want Knot gallery challenge with a garden bench made from reclaimed “sinker” cypress.

We couldn’t resist this unique and elegant piece crafted from cypress that was salvaged from the bottom of a river down south. Kellogg, a College of the Redwoods grad, found the wood at a mill in Ponchatoula, La. “As far as I can tell, the tree they came from was well over three hundred years old, and must have sat at the bottom of a river for at least another hundred years. The wood itself was a joy to work, and actually shimmers when the light hits it just right,” he wrote.

He resawed and coopered a plank to craft the seat, then used bent lamination to craft the curved supports and stretchers. We love the bench’s simple lines, the beautiful grain, and the reclaimed sinker wood.

Thanks to all
This challenge drew creative entries from the community. Projects used a wide variety of recycled wood and other materials including driftwood, barn boards, cut offs, old pieces of furniture, fences, floorboards, house sheathing, pallets, fences, boat materials, paneling, and even yard sticks!

It’s always hard to choose a winner, so we wanted to highlight some of our other favorite winners. If we miss mentioning any of your favorites, sound off with a comment below.

The Oak Floor Chair built by Joe Doherty, Seth Welty and Emilie Taylor in New Orleans received multiple votes from our staff. The sculptural and comfy-looking chair is definitely fine and with 98% recycled materials, according to the group, it clearly fits the bill for this competition.

98% reclaimed. Only the all-thread rod and screws are new, according to the builders.

The three builders resawed oak floor boards into 1/8 in. strips and laminated them using a hydraulic press. They preserved the original floor finish on the front and back of the lamination stacks. The steel in the chair was reclaimed from Katrina flood waters.

"Old Wood" also grabbed numerous votes from the staff.

Baby grand. Oldwood says he's also building matching benches for the sides, and thrones for the ends of this table.

His ornately carved, gothic pieces highlight the look of reclaimed lumber. “Look at how he made the knot part of the design,” commented one staffer.

“Barnhouse” made creative use of wine barrels with this table and chair set saying it was “oak saved from becoming flower planters.”

Tom Fidgen used driftwood in Skinny Legs and All. He build the small table from driftwood ash and recycled Angelique that was salvaged from an old barge. The elegant little table was made completely by hand using hand tool, says Fidgen.

We were also impressed by Garrett Glaser’s Eridu tables (left) made from teak patio furniture and Zeke Leonard Notirondack Chairs (right) made from flour mill floor beams.

We also loved the wormy chestnut and beautiful photographs in this kitchen island by Cubby.

Last but not least, kudos to “ToasterEric” and his White Ash tree house using salvaged from a tree devastated by the emerald ash borer. His entry is probably the most eye-catching of the lot. We loved the photos of milling up the tree and constructing the house.

Thanks to all for their creative entries and congratulations to Clark Kellogg who wins a Fine Woodworking Archive Collection DVD-ROM, a shop apron, and a Fine Woodworking mug.

And for all the rest... there are more Fine Woodworking gallery already underway. Our Build It In To Win challenge just started (enter for a chance to win one of three prize packages from Bostich) and we’re also running a Tool Chest contest for a chance to win a SawStop Professional Cabinet Saw.

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Comments (8)

pezeshki writes: Beautiful piece, for sure -- but totally bogus argument re: reclaimed wood. You can even read in FWW how some of this lumber is some of the finest in the world -- sunk logs in the Great Lakes are some of the best for instrument quality wood in the world.

And the wood affects the design. It's always easier to build truly beautiful pieces out of truly beautiful wood. It takes more talent to build something beautiful out of a bunch of weathered boards. Posted: 10:14 pm on June 3rd

wdwrkernc writes: Merriam-Webster Online defines "reclaim" as:
1 a: to recall from wrong or improper conduct : reform b: tame, subdue
2 a: to rescue from an undesirable state ; also : to restore to a previous natural state
b: to make available for human use by changing natural conditions
3: to obtain from a waste product or by-product : recover
4 a: to demand or obtain the return of b: to regain possession of

A great deal of lumber has been lost over time to the depths of rivers and lakes. Regardless of what caused those logs to enter the water (from loggers, natural causes, etc.), the logs are still in what we as woodworkers might see as an undesirable state. By bringing these logs to the surface we are recovering what was lost and bringing back an otherwise wasted resource.
Just because the lumber in Clarkatron's bench did not get pulled off of a barn or pulled out of a construction dumpster, that still does not mean that he did not breathe life back into material that had been otherwise lost. While it might not be "recycled" material, it is most certainly "reclaimed" material and, I might add, it is a lovely design, skillfully executed.
The point of these blogs is to bring woodworkers together and allow them to share their thoughts, opinions, ideas, and work. The beauty of it all is that we can have differing opinions while sharing a common love of woodworking. Personally, after reading some of the postings above, I feel as though this common thread has been forgotten, and the positive atmosphere has become much less so. How unfortunate it would be if comments like those kept people from sharing their work, or worse, caused them to resent an object that they should be very proud of. Posted: 1:17 pm on June 3rd

Mahoganaholic writes:
Nice to have the log back on terra firma, but someone would have found it eventually. Sinker logs are sometimes naturally occuring from blow-downs, and sometimes from the 'one that got away' from a log raft. Still... just a log. Not recycled or reused. Just found.

I really couldn't pick a favorite (personally, I'm kinda fond of the Trestle Candleholders). ;-) I imagine judging the contest is very difficult. Kudos to you guys for your effort. I can't help but think that it would have been a little easier to judge if the projects submitted conformed to the rules of the contest! Posted: 9:28 am on June 3rd

ianmilliss writes: The bench and the white ash tree house are both beautiful but I'd like to add my protest vote here, if the project wasn't made from timber that had already been used to make something else previously then it should not have been allowed. There is also an aesthetic that tends to come with recycled and reclaimed timber that accepts flaws and marks of a previous life and far too many of the projects overworked their wood to hide that - they may aswell have been made of new timber. For the record my favourites were the Rest room at rear table, its companion stacked cube and the reclaimed wood end table (yes I liked the red castors!).

You need to run this contest again, this time for real. Posted: 7:54 am on June 3rd

GEide writes: Mahoganaholic and JazKat, Thanks for the feedback. Point taken. If you folks had been at the judges table, maybe this would have gone a different way. But, I personally think that sinker cypress is pretty cool... these are logs that have been sitting at the bottom of rivers and bayous for eons. Instead of letting them sit there for perpetuity, Clarkatron’s log was salvaged from the deep to make furniture. It definitely fits the concept of “Waste Knot” in my mind. We get to give out the prize, but that doesn’t mean that you folks can’t heap on the accolades. That’s why we give shout-outs to so many pieces... it’s hard to choose. So please chime in, which piece is your favorite? For more on salvage lumber like this, check out this short article from FWW 173:
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/Materials/MaterialsArticle.aspx?id=32645

Also, Louisiana furniture maker Greg Arceneaux talks about sinker wood in this video: http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=30235 Also, Matt Berger writes about underwater logging in this blog post: http://blogs.taunton.com/n/blogs/blog.aspx?nav=main&webtag=fw-editorsblog&entry=180 -Gina, FineWoodworking.com Posted: 7:01 am on June 3rd

JazKat writes: I have to agree with the comments of Mahoganaholic. The contest was about using "recycled wood".

"Show a project you created using recycled wood . . ."

re⋅cy⋅cle: to treat or process (used or waste materials) so as to make suitable for reuse
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/recycled

With all due respect to Fine Woodworking staff and contest judges, you lost sight of the primary qualification for entry in this contest. Though the cypress bench is beautiful it doesn't meet the requirements of the contest. Posted: 7:21 pm on June 2nd

goodmoldings writes: Great to see a beautiful piece made from this awesome material. We have a large inventory of river recovered cypress and really enjoy working with it....just finished milling sinker cypress lap siding for a house on the coast....absolutely beautiful!

Kevin Cleveland

www.goodmoldings.com Posted: 12:59 pm on June 2nd

Mahoganaholic writes: Wasn't the medium for this challenge to be recycled, or reclaimed wood? As in, "Hey, look what I made out of an old pallet!"

A log on the bottom of a river is just a log, and it's wood really can't be considered reclaimed. Same with a blown-down tree, it has never been anything other than a log. Posted: 12:05 pm on June 2nd

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