A Christmas Puzzle

Here is a tool I made as a gift.  Not the hardest puzzle to solve, but a puzzle.

No fair guessing, Skip, you saw the sketches!

My goal here was to make a tool that would appeal to both my love of the simple rustic line and to those who desire bling.  It is made of mesquite, O1 Steel. aluminum bronze and leather.

Bob

4 comments to A Christmas Puzzle

  • Skip J.

    Mercy! Well if you hadn’t reminded me – because of the way you photographed it – I would never have guessed!

    Well done! Another Tejas Art Tool is born…. I need to get some of my Tejas Art Trees covered up before it gets any colder……

    Skip

  • OK. I’ll admit ignorance. What is a “Tejas Art Tool?”

  • Tejas means friendly. It also is what the American Indians used to describe this area.

    The thought of the Tejas art movement is compelling tools and crafts. Solid, timeless, simple and friendly. Renewable materials, showing respect for the world we leave to our grandchildren.

    The ideal of the Tejas Movement is to encourage the use of local materials, responsibly managed, no matter where you live.

    Bob

  • Skip J.

    Bob Said:

    “The thought of the Tejas art movement is compelling tools and crafts. Solid, timeless, simple and friendly. Renewable materials, showing respect for the world we leave to our grandchildren.”

    Awhile back I saw photos of Bob’s old tyme toolbox and said to myself that they looked to be of a frontiersman style, from before sellers took over this part of the earth. I noted that all of the tools looked to be handmade of local materials and Bob provided me with the whole nine yards – local, renewable materials crafted into tools with care by the owner/user woodworker. After considerable discussion with Bob, we agreed that the native American ethic was included and that a good name for the new/old “style” would be Tejas, the name of the tribal federation inhabiting this part of Texas when the Spanish landed, and named our state after them. Thereafter, the Spanish name here was Tejas, and when the Texians took over, it became Texas. And so the Tejas Art Movement was born, Bob being the artist at the moment.

    Having raised my bonsais for many years out of local species, and in a manner to mimic natural growth of these same species – I asked Bob if we could name them Tejas Trees – and at that moment joined Bob in his Movement, even though I will never be artistic.

    You can find a build article from Bob about his Tejas Tool Toolbox in the tool box category at left. He has also written articles here about his olde tyme magic wax mix and milkpaint. All of which are appropriate to the frontiersman era and style.

    Notice that Bob likes to make tool handles from mesquite and osage orange (bodark), toolboxes from pine covered in milkpaint, and builds woodworking projects from cedar. We have also discussed utilizing hackberry – and maybe even Chinese tallow. All of those species are considered trash trees here and are usually bulldozed and set on fire in Texas.

    Merry Christmas! and a

    Happy New Year!

    Skip

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