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Ron Menninga (Head Elfin) thewoodelfin@woodelfin.com
(925) 609-6314 - Concord, CA
The Head Elfin's Chief Critic and her Dog (Pawdog passed on 6/07/2007, Obituary)
Welcome to my web site, it is my hope that visitors will find it inspiring, instructive, interesting and perhaps you will find something beautiful that you will want in your home or to give as a present.
I have been working with wood in one form or another for quite some time but discovered the lathe fairly recently and fell in love with what can be done with it. Along with the joy of creating beautiful bowls, peppermills and many more items I hope that you might find something that you might like to own (see my Showcase pages for items that are not available for purchase or my For Sale page for currently available pieces).
My website is fairly new and I will be adding content as time passes. I plan on adding pages describing some of the procedures that go into the creation of my work and much more. If you click on the small bowl in my heading you can see some of the procedures that go into creating it (work in progress).
The picture is an Ogee shaped bowl made from Norfolk Island Pine (which is not a true pine). I started turning this wood in late 2009 and I just fell in love with the colors and possibilities. The bowls are typically turned to approximately 1/8 inch in thickness and then after they are shaped and sanded I soak them in an oil solution for up to a couple of weeks or more until they are completely saturated. This gives the bowl a great deal of strength and makes them very translucent. I have also fallen in love with the Hawaiian shapes such as the calabash and umeke; they look simple but are quite difficult to do well. For those of you who have visited galleries in Hawaii that carry wood turnings you have probably seen many bowls made from Norfolk Island Pine. See my NIP for sale page for available pieces.
(Click on the picture below for an idea of the translucency. The picture was taken while it was on the lathe and freshly turned wet.)
