Several months ago, Roarockit received an order from Wood’n’Stuff. Ever since, we have been in admiration of his work, following his technics and the evolution of his projects.
Now, months down the road, we are particularly proud to be able to share the story behind Wood’n’Stuff and what it has become today.
So, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, where do you come from, what you did before etc…?
Sure — I’m Peter, a thirty something occasional woodworker from the town of Budapest, Hungary and a proud father of two. I manage a software product by day and I have a second life working with wood by night. I guess it’s needless to draw your attention to the classic “concealed superhero” setting here 😛
When did you first get into woodworking ?
It started out with a hinge that I wanted to mortise into an IKEA storage bench. I carefully researched the subject — that’s two YouTube videos — then headed out to the home improvement store and returned with a chisel and a mallet. Four gruelling hours later I swiped away the sweat on my forehead and proudly adored two rather ugly-looking recesses for the hinges. With the 10 points immediately deposited on my Manliness Account, I decided this experience was for me and that’s where it all started (only later I learned that chisels are sold dull and need to be sharpened before first use).
This was two years ago. Ever since then I stick with hand tools — chisels, hand saws and hand planes, that kind of stuff. They are slow and take a good deal of skill that I’m still very much in progress of acquiring, but they offer a kind of intimacy with wood I doubt I could get from power tools. It’s an incredibly intensive thing. And I get to keep my fingers.
When, why and how did you find the Roarockit technology ?
Frankly, I don’t recall where exactly I ran into it, but I do remember it was some Internet forum where the commenters said the inventor’s idea can’t possibly work. This was kind of odd for a product that has already been proven and sold by then, so the name “Roarockit” stuck in my mind.
A year later, when my project ideas called for something more flexible than traditional clamping I decided to give the TAP kit a try. In a way, this was because someone, somewhere once said that this was going to be a poor decision 🙂 You gotta love the irony.
In particular, I looked into vacuum pressing because my bentwood bracelets are made of several layers of veneers laminated onto circular molds and vacuuming saves me tons of work by not having to make a mold negative to press veneers onto the mold.
I have to admit I had doubts about whether TAP will work for the tighter curves I need compared to a skateboard, but once the test project passed with flying colors — no gaps between layers or impressions from the breathing net — I put it into use immediately. My setup is pretty similar to the skateboard building one, except that I use thinner veneers (1/32” instead of 1/16”) and another PVA glue instead of Titebond III. I’m yet to test it with some of the more rigid veneers like goncalo alves, but I’m confident it will work just as
flawlessly as with the softer hardwoods.
What is the spirit of wood’n’stuff? Why did you create it ?
How could I not? It combines my two things I feel passionate about: woodworking and creating products 🙂 It’s so much fun to build something from the ground up, starting with nothing but blank canvas.
The spirit is definitely geometric as opposed to ornamental. Ok, it positively helps that I suck at drawing, but being a “sans serif” kind of guy, the things that get me going are lines, angles, ratios, curves borrowed from perfect circles. Frankly, I could admire a perfectly polished slab of steel for hours 🙂 Geometry is also such an alien concept to an utterly organic material like wood that it acts as a frame and highlights the natural grain of wood. A hard edge on a block of wood forces your mind to traverse the grain, to reveal the structure, to fully comprehend the uniqueness of wood as a material.
What do you expect from wood’n’stuff? How far do you want to go ? 
Wherever the road takes us! At this point, I’m thinking about growing a well-groomed beard and buying a flannel shirt to get fully immersed in the subculture 🙂
I try to keep this project fun and not to take it too seriously — hence the name “wood’n’stuff” — which is surprisingly hard given the tremendous passion that goes into it. Of course, in my dreams it grows into an awesome full-time woodworking enterprise, with a rustic barn converted into a heated shop and huge slabs of walnut neatly stacked up next to my collection of $400 Lie-Nielsen bench planes, but let’s just say the seed has just sprouted and there’s a long way ahead and milestones to conquered. Like reaching breakeven. Ahem 🙂
Are there any new projects for wood’n’stuff?
Oh, more than I have time for. I definitely want to further explore veneer lamination bracelets and I can freely experiment with any convex shape now, thanks to my TAP kit which I hereby endorse 🙂 I have some exciting ideas that will be put to the test in the coming weeks.
I’m also very interested bringing cast concrete and wood together. Walnut with its earthy brown, in particular, looks stunning next to grey industrial concrete, so that should be another way to bring out the beauty of wood.
Find Peter and his Etsy shop at https://woodplusstuff.etsy.com
and on Instagram at @wood.n.stuff (https://www.instagram.com/wood.n.stuff/)
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