Author: Mark
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Satan the Waster
My best guess is that the New Haven Police Department dumped these guns in Long Island Sound.
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Small Round Triangular Stool
Here’s a small stool made from scraps of pine, fir, and a dash of walnut.
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Gibson Inspired Sunburst Coffee Table
I acquired a factory produced Queen Anne coffee table some time ago, and it hung around the shop serving as an overflow storage surface, buried under paint cans and unsorted hardware. I forgot all about it until the day I finally got around to cleaning up.
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The Sportsmanship Cue
Legends are born in events that we rarely take personal part in. Actions that transcend ordinary lives always seem to occur when we’re not there to see. Those near enough to bear witness later share their tale with a circle of friends, and eventually the word reaches our ears. This is such a tale.
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Mystery Toadstool
I’ve had a short section of a log in my possession for years. I have no idea where it came from, or what type of wood it is, just that it’s very light in weight. It’s also light in color, yet it produces dark brown chips. It’s a mystery.
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Boarding Ladder Shelves
I welcome the whole ‘re-purposing’ movement. It makes fashionable what people all over the world have been doing for thousands of years as a matter of instinct and survival: simple conservation.
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Oyster Sloop Hope
For almost fifteen years, I performed maintenance work on the F/V Oceanic, a 41′ research and teaching boat owned and operated by the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, CT.
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x_splashnote: Contact Thanks
Thank You! Your message in on its way. Carry on with whatever you were doing. Once my fully robotic staff has read your message and added their well intentioned comments to the margins, it will be rolled up and served to me in a copper samovar along with a warm biscuit. I’ll get back to you.
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x-splashnote: Gallery
The Back Room Is Not the Gift Shop… Special offers, unrelated items and other stuff may appear here. Specials Currently Offered:
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Donate
Donations Accepted If you’d like to help keep this operation operating, this is the place. All donations, regardless of the amount, will be received with a mixture of solemn respect for your good judgement and generous nature, and giddy celebration at being reminded that the world is indeed a friendly place. This is a simple,…
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Untitled, Painted Wood
I can’t honestly say that I always have a preconceived idea of what I’m about to make when I begin a project. In fact, I enjoy that the most. All too often, what can be imagined doesn’t translate well into the language of reality. Other times, an idea is simply incompatible with reality, and it can be…
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Guitar Rift
This guitar was handmade by some guy I met in a field. I bought it from him right then and there. Rash purchases are often followed by remorse, and this case was no exception.
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Hephaestus
This piece is built around my first welding helmet. I retired the helmet long ago, but never got rid of it. It hung on one wall or another for twenty years or more, silently watching as I went about my life. Then one day, surfacing from deep and distant thoughts, I found myself staring at it,…
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Consumer Cycle
This Yamaha is a festival of useless cosmetic flourishes. Its drooping lines and pudgy bulges are just silly. Its ancillary components are remarkably overweight. The design team been must have told We don’t care, it just can’t look like last year’s model. I really didn’t want to start a new project, but I just couldn’t resist. Like picking at a strip of peeling wallpaper.
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Entropic Chic Interrupted
As a species, we scramble around trying to improve our situation. We invent, experiment, build and create, all in the hope of finding something better than whatever it is that we already have. We like change. Nature, however, prefers things as they were. What follows is an example of that ongoing disagreement. The link to this page was…
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Shackle Bookends
These old shackles probably should have been retired long before they reached this level of wear. On the other hand, their extended service has given them a look that the most creative of ‘distressing’ efforts could never match.
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Excelsior No.1 Table
Even though ‘repurposing’ has become an overused and somewhat annoying buzzword, I think the underlying concept is sound on many levels, and even noble in an environmental context.
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The Ants & the Grasshopper (A Fable Retold)
One bright day in late autumn a colony of ants were bustling about in the warm sunshine, drying out the grain they had stored up during the summer, when a starving Grasshopper, his fiddle under his arm, came up and humbly begged for a bite to eat. “What!” cried the ants in surprise, “haven’t you…
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Flying Fish
This is special to me. I started it a long time ago as a present for someone, but didn’t finish it in time to give it to them. Many years later, I set out to complete it, but found it had become something different in the intervening years, both in appearance and in its meaning to me.…
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Waring Blendor Lamp
Fred Waring was a very popular musician from the 1920s into the 1950s. During this career, he earned both the appellation ‘The Man Who Taught America To Sing’ and the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor the U.S. government can bestow on a civilian. Personally, I’d never heard of him prior to doing this bit…
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Bust of Triliminal Entity
Original sculpture incorporating copper, glass, industrial and organic remains.
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Motorcycle Tribal Mask
Increasingly, we see the term ‘Tribal’ applied to tattoos and other graphic designs that vaguely resemble genuine ethnic cultural symbols. That got me to wondering exactly what makes something ‘tribal’.
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Oscilloscope Wall Mirror
This used to be an EICO Model 460 DC Wide Band 4.5 MHz Oscilloscope. Once the oscilloscope lost its ability to analyze signal frequencies with any degree of accuracy, it was simply cast off, its useful life ended.
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Antique Tool Chest Table
I found this old carpenter’ s box lying on a tarp in the middle of a vast flea market. There were a few hand tools still in it, possibly original, maybe not. The box is plainly made and humble. I imagine it was built for the simple purpose of holding its owner’s tools. I…
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Margaret Tarrant Reprints
Margaret Winifred Tarrant (1888-1959) was a prolific and popular English illustrator, best known for the charming illustrations she produced for various fairy tale and children’s books. In my ongoing effort to preserve things worth saving, I have digitally restored a collection of her classic fairy tale illustrations. Additional prints will be added as they are completed.
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Buick Hubcap Guitar
I was commissioned to build this guitar featuring a vintage Buick hubcap as a resonator. The earliest musical instruments were made from found materials- gourds, shells, and even human skulls were used as resonating chambers, so a hubcap makes perfect sense.
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My Work Tables
It seems that I’ve taken a non-traditional approach to the work bench. Google ‘woodworking bench’ and you’ll find an ongoing competition among those claiming to have created the Ultimate Workbench. You’ll find exquisite variations based on a familiar tradtional pattern. Impressive indeed, but I’d be afraid to make my lunch on some of these heirloom-quality,…
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Bench Racer
A long time ago, my father made a simple bench out of a scrap of 4×6″ fir. Back then, a bunch of us were racing motorcycles, and we would engage in ‘bench racing’ sessions- reviewing memorable moments from recent or famous rides- akin to the idea of the ‘Monday morning quarterback’ sessions. Straddling this rustic bench was a…