So after visiting some good friends a few weeks ago, I helped myself to their firewood (with their blessing of course), all of which came from their 2 acre wooded lot. What I have pictured here is my first attempt at splitting down logs using a chainsaw/band-saw and converting them into usable/turnable chunks of lumber. On the far right is a couple of ash bowls which fit comfortably in your hand. When you hold the two of them rim to rim, you can actually see the pith and rings line up. The middle pic is of two lidded containers from a maple tree trunk (a piece of which is in the picture as well). The smaller one was my first attempt which went pretty well until it came to the lid. That blew apart after I had a bad catch because I was using the wrong gouge on the end grain. I recovered/cheated by using a piece of scrap aspen for the lid and a chunk of purpleheart for the finial. The larger container was the second attempt which went better for the lid, but I now realize I need a hollowing gouge for deeper cuts. The pic on the left was a set of acrylics I did as a gift for a fellow artist friend.