Who I am

My love and appreciation for wood goes back to my roots growing up in Oregon. My father was a sheet metal worker, but he did a lot of woodworking around the house and I learned much from him.

But I never really got serious about woodworking until much later in life when I could afford the power tools that are required to do the precision work I wanted. The furniture that I built is much appreciated by my family members. The Shaker style dresser with handcut dovetails will become family heirlooms.

One day I was reading an Arizona Highways catalog and noticed they were advertising pens made from mesquite. That launched me into buying my first lathe. It was a Sherline lathe, actually a small metalturning lathe. I modified it for making pens, and I was hooked

For those of you reading this who have purchased lathes, you know that it does not end there. Making pens led to making wine stoppers which led to making small bowls. And soon I had exceeded the capacity of my little Sherline.

Time to buy a bigger lathe! My next lathe was a mid-sized lathe made by a company in New Zealand. Now I could make all sorts of objects!

And then I got a call from a friend who lives in Tucson. He told me he had a dead ironwood tree on his property and I could have it if I wanted. I had never cut ironwood before. So I showed up with my trusty bowsaw and started sawing on a limb. My friend came out, saw what I was doing, and exclaimed, “Didn’t you bring a chainsaw? I sheepishly replied that I did not own one. He brought his out and I proceeded to cut down the tree.

After I made a few pens out of the wood, I was hooked. This wood was so beautiful. Ironwood displays a reflective property called chatoyance meaning it reflects sunlight just like tigereye.

My fulltime woodturning career began when my corporate career ended in 2007. I began doing street fairs around Phoenix and the rest of Arizona.

And it was not long before I needed yet a bigger lathe. So now I have a full size lathe made by the same New Zealand company and I use it to create everything but pens, for that I still use my Sherline.

The lathe is a tool that spins a mounted piece of wood. By applying chisels of various configurations the lathe allows one to take raw logs (firewood to anyone else!) and create useful and decorative items. And although most people think of bowls when they think of a lathe, there are many other objects that can be created, and not all them circular!

Now I specialize in creating useful and decorative items out of ironwood. This wood only grows in the Sonoran Desert which extends from southern Arizona into northern Mexico. The tree is protected so I rely on private landowners as my source of ironwood. I only cut dead trees.

I use other woods too. The Sonoran Desert is also home to other attractive wood species, such as mesquite in many varieties, and palo verde and its cousins. And there are many woods imported from Australia: willow acacia and various eucalypts.

So every time there is a big windstorm here in Phoenix, there are always new species that become available from our urban forest. These are wood species that are imported from other countries for landscape use here, such as weeping acacia from Australia and olive from Europe.

Lately I have been creating bowls that retain the natural edge of the wood. This is a bit more difficult to create than a straight-lipped bowl, but the extra effort is worth it. The natural edge gives the bowl a much richer look. The sapwood always provides a nice contrast to the heartwood which is normally much darker than the sapwood. So what you end up with is nice undulating, contrasting border along the lip of the bowl. Sweet!

But as I mentioned before there are many items that can be created on a lathe that are not circular. In the years to come, I plan to explore those shapes. And I hope you will come along on this journey with me..

What’s next?

• Contact me
• Visit my shops
• Visit my galleries
• See me at a show

About the Materials I Use

I am sensitive to origins of the materials I use. The woods come from certified sources, so I do not contribute to deforestation. The materials from animal sources (skins, ivory, antlers) are by-products from humanely harvested animals. When I use ivory I ensure it is from legal sources. It may be mastodon ivory or reclaimed ivory from a piano keyboard.

Desert ironwood. I live in the desert so I am especially fond of using local materials. That is why frequently I use desert ironwood (Tesota Olneya). Not only is this wood is extremely hard and heavy (It will not float.), it occurs in a most pleasing array of oranges, yellows, browns and black.

Here is a list of the woods that I typically have in stock:

Welcome! You are visitor number

All the photographs of this site are the exclusive property of Richard Altenhofen LLC.
All reproductions are strictly prohibited without the consent of the author © Richard Altenhofen 2012.
This site was conceived and realized by Richard Altenhofen, Sonoran Desert Woodturner.

 

I am a proud member of

Richard Altenhofen

Sonoran Desert Woodturner