Ambrosia maple

[Fred Voorhees]

My son called over the weekend and said that he would be over early in the week to ask about something. Turns out that he wants to buid a small jewelry box for his current flame. Now, mind you he has never really done any woodworking, so naturally, I'm a bit excited at the thought of sharing some of this quality time with him. We went to my local rough sawn lumber vendor and I wanted to see if he had any ambrosia maple since that would really make for a nice looking project.

Sure enough, he did and we carted it home (along with a couple of lengths of nice red oak planking - heck, I just couldn't resist!) and earlier tonight, we began to mill the stuff down and get some of the pieces fabbed up for continuation this Wednesday night when he will be back to continue.

Being an avid fisherman, I at one time tried to get him interested in that. That was a fairly certain bust. It was pretty cool tonight letting him try his hand at some jointing and sawing on the tablesaw - showing him how to do things safely and giving him little hints to the few tricks I have accumulated over the years.

Pictured below is just a few of the pieces. Nice looking stuff - thanks to the "ambrosia worms".

[scott spencer]

Fred - Last summer my 17 year old son came and asked about building a jewelry box for his girlfriend too. Like your son, he'd never spent much time in the shop. He wanted cherry with splined corner miters of maple, and an oval birdseye maple inlay. We spent a few hours going over the pieces and squaring up the lumber. After cutting up ~ $30 of cherry, I bugged him a few more times to do the tasks he was capable of and we got those done. Bottom line...he put 3 or 4 hours into it, and I think I logged more like 20! (kind of a pride thing after a while....I didn't want to be associated with it if it looked like junk) He did help with the final assembly and finishing, and thinks he made it. Plus we did have a few father/son moments.....of course, he probably didn't even notice! (LOL!)

It ended up looking great, and I asked if he'd give it to her at our house so I could at least see her reaction. "No problem" he says, but when I got home from work, he's gone and so is the jewelry box! ("ungrateful kid" was probably one of the kinder things I muttered!). Honestly, I was pretty disappointed....wished he'd just leveled with me if he wanted a private moment!

Good luck with yours. Hope you guys have great times! .....the ambrosia maple looks interesting.

[Gary Whitt]

I love the look of Ambrosia maple.

A friend and I just bought over 185 bf of it for .60 bf.

Most were 8-11" wide and 13 1/2 feet long!!!!

[Jim Becker]

That's mighty fine looking ambrosia maple, Fred...perfect for the project that your son wants to complete for his heart's desire. If you need some walnut for accents, let me know...I have a bunch!