The Three-Legged Pig

One of my favorite jokes of all time is the old one about the heroic three-legged pig, with the punch line being, “A pig that good, you just don’t eat him all at once.”

This past week I was able to spend the evening visiting with my long time woodworking pal Tom in his shop.  If you recall, Tom and spent Wednesday evenings for many years working in his shop and it was such a delight to reprise those evenings.  Anyhow, to tie the joke to this post I tell you that Tom was clearing some space in his shop.  Translation: he was making me take a bunch of my stuff with me so he could get some more space.

One of the treats he threw into the mix as I was loading up the car was this exquisite slab of birds-eye(!) walnut, measuring 36″ x 16″ x 4-1/2″.  Now that is a spectacular pig and I do not want to eat it all at once.

I have some ideas about what to do with this treasure and the current front runner is this lovely accessory for the bench top.

Before It do that, however, I want to make a prototype from my stash of old growth, premium cypress staves from a c. 1840 water tank I bought during the mezozoic era.   Once I get that done I can turn my attention to the walnut one. 

In fact, the walnut slab is so thick I can re-saw it and make two of them.

No sense in wasting a pig that good.