Custom Woodworking

We believe everyone deserves to experience the pride and satisfaction that derive from a beautiful and unique piece of woodwork. For what you might pay for a piece of high-quality factory-made furniture, we can design and build a custom piece to your specifications, with special emphasis on your requirements and tastes. This collaboration between client and woodworker will result in a truly personal heirloom that will last for generations.

          At Wender Todd, we have a single-minded obsession with quality. We start with exceptional wood, which we select one board at a time, looking for beautiful figure and straightness. Precision machining and joinery make for pieces that fit together perfectly and are amazingly strong. We prefer to use solid wood throughout, even in drawer bottoms and cabinet backs. Drawers, which are side hung and center guided, offer smooth operation and virtually no side play. Careful planing, sanding, and hand-rubbed finishes bring out the inherent beauty of the wood.

How the Process Works

We consult with you regarding your particular needs, listening and offering options in design and materials. We develop a detailed CAD (computer-aided design) drawing with exact dimensions, offer a fixed price, and determine an approximate delivery schedule. At the time you decide to proceed, you will be charged a non-refundable 50% deposit, with the rest being due upon delivery.

Some Notes about Wood

Wood is a fascinating material. It is wood's distinctive beauty that draws us to it, while its strength, permanence, and workability make it the material of choice for fine furniture. While a tree stops growing at the time it is harvested, wood continues a life of its own, changing shape and dimension with the seasons and changes in humidity.

     Although high-quality tools allow machining to tolerances of a few thousandths of an inch, changes in humidity can cause the wood itself to move 1/4 inch or more across a moderately wide board. Anything made out of solid wood has to be built to allow this movement. We carefully engineer our pieces to accommodate wood movement almost invisibly, using proven techniques which have evolved over hundreds of years. 

     For each project, we choose the wood board by board, looking for the following qualities:

• Straightness and lack of structural defects—We select the straightest available with uniform grain, which are less likely to twist or bend.
• Appearance—We look for attractive figure, and boards of uniform appearance. However, we will sometimes select some unusual figure as a contrast, or mix woods to achieve that effect. We value distinctive figure because of the natural beauty and interest it adds.
• Conservation—We practice conservation both in the utilization of the wood we buy and in our sources for wood. We purchase our raw materials from reputable dealers, and whenever possible select product from certified sustainably harvested sources.

Some of Our Favorite Woods

There are numerous examples of our favorite woods in the photographs on this Website. We have a preference for  clear finishes that do not obscure the color or the texture of the wood. These include wipe-on varnishes for applications demanding durability, and natural linseed oil for bringing out the natural warm beauty of cherry and walnut.

Bubinga—Also called African Rosewood, bubinga is a strikingly beautiful wood with an almost luminescent figure ranging from browns to reds. It is about 1.6 times as hard and as heavy as oak, and can be difficult to work. We think it is worth the extra effort. It's also just so much fun to pronounce.

Cherry—Another favorite of furniture makers, cherry is a pleasure to work. We like to apply a natural finish, which brings out the often dramatic figure and results in warm tones, which darken slightly with time. It is usually available as certified sustainably harvested.

Eastern Maple—Relatively  easy to machine, eastern maple tends to move a great deal with changes in humidity. Finding straight boards can be a challenge. Discreet use of the darker heartwood can add interest to clear maple, as can bird's eye or curly figure. Maple is usually available as certified sustainably harvested.

Honduran Mahogany—A traditional favorite of furniture makers, mahogany is beautiful, easy to work, and relatively stable, and it can range in color from dark reddish brown to light beige. We can generally get mahogany that is certified as sustainably harvested.

Jatoba—Also known as Brazilian Cherry, it is an extremely hard wood with a pronounced grain, varying from browns to ocher.

Myrtle—Grown primarily in Oregon, myrtle is another very hard wood, but not too difficult to work. It can display spectacular figure, a result of minerals absorbed by the wood during its growth.

Western Maple—Also known as big leaf maple, these trees are a common sight around the Puget Sound. Softer than its eastern cousin, this wood is prized for the spectacular figure and the "quilting" it can exhibit. It is a favorite of ours for turning bowls and for music stand tops.