David J. Marks Woodworking School

08/13/2026

I had a great visit and class with one of my long-time students on Monday. Izzy Charo scheduled a one day class on hollow vessel turning and brought along two blanks of wood that were a gift from his wife many years ago. One was redwood burl which is a soft wood for turning and the other was Black Acacia. Izzy decided to work on the Black Acacia which I believe he said was possibly 25 years old and now a very dry and hard material to work with, so he would rather turn the more challenging one under my guidance. He used a spindle roughing gouge to turn it into a cylinder and a bowl gouge to do some shaping. The plan was for him to get some experience using my torque arrest Jamieson bar for hollowing and then he will purchase one to finish it at home. We knew that he wouldn't complete it in one day so he purchased an adapter so that the faceplate that fits my lathe could be adapted to fit on his Powermatic lathe at home. This was Izzy's 5th time taking classes here at our woodworking school so it was nice to see him again. His first class here was a group class on double bevel marquetry back in 2013. Us older guys in our mid 70's understand the importance of challenging ourselves and to keep learning in order to enjoy life and maintain our health.
Carry on Izzy!

08/06/2026

"Contain Yourself" is the name that I chose for this small African Blackwood box/container.
I turned this container last year (2025) and I have been saving it to use as a demonstration piece for an upcoming class that I will be teaching at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine at the end of September.
It's a simple container with some complex features like hand chased threads, spiral patterns, chatter work as well as beads and coves turned in a very dense wood.
I have always liked using contrasting woods and black and white make for a great contrast. I used African Blackwood for the base and it's an excellent wood for chasing threads in. It's hard to beat quilted maple for its depth and beautiful figure and it works well for the turned dome.

08/06/2026

The humble helix is amazingly important in profound ways that we probably have never imagined.
The first type of screw was used to move water in the hanging gardens of Babylon around 600 BC.
Ancient people used tons of Olive Oil and Wine and discovered a better way to press olives and grapes using a screw press.
Ancient craftsmen would wrap a wooden cylinder with a precisely cut strip of leather to create a helical pattern.
They carefully sawed along the spiral line to a uniform depth then used a V parting chisel to remove the waste wood.
Today screws hold the world together, and they are in everything we use. And Yes, "pun intended", we are all screwed up!
I enjoy turning wood screws or technically a bolt,to use for containers and boxes. This Olivewood nut and bolt is something that I turned on one of my lathes as a demo piece for my students to learn from.

07/16/2026

It's hard to believe that it's been 16 years since I had my Alchemist Vessel on display at the AAW Symposium in Hartford Conn. It sold on the second day of the show for 12 grand. The base is Ebony and took about as long to make as the vessel. I made two segmented rings with Ebony and glued them together staggering the joints for strength. The legs are bentwood laminations and are comprised of 5 layers, each tapered to 1/32" at the foot. I had to fit the inside diameter of the segmented ring to the vessel which required mounting it on the lathe several times, turning away some ebony, and checking the fit to get it into the appropriate position. The highlight of my trip was when David Ellsworth came up to me and personally congratulated me on my work! Man that felt great! A special thanks to Andi Wolfe ( an extremely talented woodturner) for taking this photo!

06/23/2026

The Elio Drive is a great way to handle uneven surfaces like this branch of English Boxwood.
It’s a number 2 Morse Taper which mounts in the headstock and it has a center point which is adjustable and the other two points on the left and right are adjustable also.
They have Allen head drive screws so you can get in there with an Allen head wrench to tighten them to your tolerances.

06/13/2026

My Christmas Present to myself arrived early yesterday and I am very excited about it! I have been in communication for a while with a friend in the UK.
Huw Crompton shipped 6 branches of English Boxwood to me and I am very glad to have them! I plan to use them for turning boxes/containers with hand chased threads. Thank you very much Huw!!

06/13/2026

Here's the final video of three that Jaime Rivera shot and edited from my presentation on Gilding and Patinas. This is from a lecture and demonstration that I did for the Sonoma County Woodworkers Association last month on May 5th.
It's a little over 10 mins and touches on subjects like sandblasting to add texture to the surface. There are also some humorous stories in there. I like to have fun when I teach. The beginning and ending shows a collection of my work,some of which are pieces that are quite impressive if I do say so myself! There will be a new video next week so look for that one.
Thanks for watching and please give Jaime's channel a thumbs up! We need to support the Arts,Music and good vibes of Wine Country!

Sonoma County Woodworkers Association demonstration on gilding with...

06/09/2026

Jordan Ryan took my advice and selected some pieces from my Olivewood collection to turn his canister style box/container with a lid for his project in my group class. I milled this Olivewood into slabs back in 2013 and it's dry. Olivewood is one of my favorites but it does tend to crack so my solution has been to mix black powdered pigment into epoxy and use it to fill the cracks. Sometimes as you turn it,more cracks appear which can be very frustrating. I really like the Starbond black medium viscosity CA glue for filling these small final cracks. It seeps in and then we use their accelerator sprayed on to cured it within minutes. It hardens fast so that it can be sanded flush with the surface. Jordan might have been cursing me, haha, but if he was he hid it well and continued to be a good sport and stay on course. For the lid,I suggested a simple friction fit which he successfully turned by cutting a rabbet or recess on the inside of the lid. Negative rake scrapers were the tools that he used to clean up the inside and bottom of the box,followed up by sanding.
He also reverse mounted it on a jam chuck and used the point tool to add some grooves defining the bottom. I think his canister box turned out great and looks like marble! I really like it. He was also able to finish his bowl from a few days earlier in his private class. A round of applause to my friend Jordan!

06/09/2026

Paul Rothaus selected a nice piece of dry Sycamore for his bowl and he wanted to work on an undercut rim. After roughing out the shape and turning a tenon, he reversed the bowl and began to work on hollowing the inside with a bowl gouge. As he got to the rim area, I offered him several different tools and added that the quickest and best bet that I would use is the Pro Easy wood tool Hollower because the curved bar (Swan Neck) gets right up to the inside of the rim. I also have Hunter carbide tools which can be rotated for more of a shear scrape but since the sycamore cuts so cleanly, the Easy wood hollower worked well. He had wanted to try adding something to the outside which would be clean and elegant and he decided to use the point tool for some clean grooves defining a band. After reversing again,he used a jam chuck to hold the bowl in place and turn the bottom. Paul added two V grooves for definition using a point tool. The small nub was carved away when he used my Foredom rotary tool with a round carbide burr. Paul did a fine job sanding and applied a hand rubbed oil finish using Arm-R-Seal. He was very happy with the results. He also had enough time to start on a second piece with an unusual design.
He liked the figure in some of the Bocote wood that I had and glued it onto a piece of Wenge which will create a black rim after being hollowed. In order to maximize the full 2 inches of the Bocote,we glued on a "waste block" so that the tenon could be turned in it. Paul took it home to complete it and I look forward to seeing the finished bowl.

06/08/2026

Stefan Benton worked diligently on his box. It was a challenge turning this very dense but beautiful Pernambuco wood and as his teacher I was there to help when he needed it. He painstakingly shaved off material a little bit at a time to get the grains to match up when the lid was closed.
To finish it off he turned the top into a dome and decided to add some beads and a cove cut for details and places to grip.
The African Blackwood that he turned for the collar added a dramatic contrast and he asked me to demo the "Dennis Stewart chatter tool" that I bought 20 years ago on it. I don't think they are available anymore. It leaves a great texture pattern after you sharpen the bevels and turn the speed up. I added some V grooves on either side to make it stand out. Congrats to Stefan for hanging in there and doing a very fine job with a very difficult project!