Breathing Life Into Dead Wood

There are several trees in my yard, almost all of which I dislike for either having to be mowed around or for dropping leaves in the fall.  The one tree I really liked, a spruce, died over the winter.  My father and I cut it down and removed it from the yard, but an idea for a wood project lead me to retrieve the main portion of the lower trunk and get it drying in my shed.

While at a fly fishing show in Cincinnati last winter, I saw this cool idea for temporary fly storage on your bench.  It was a wooden cylinder on a lazy Susan with rings of foam.  As flies, either completed or partially completed, came off the vise, they could be neatly stored on the foam rings.  I was not about to pay $90 for something I was sure I could make for a lot less money.

After the wood had dried for a few months in the shed, my father and I started working on it to get the piece of wood smoothed down and ready for detail work on the lathe.  That ended up being the hardest part of the project, and dad handled most of that work.  I sketched my plan on a PostIt at work, ordered the materials I did not have (foam, lazy Susan), and got busy making it happen.  Here's a look at the project after some shaping on the lathe.

Once the piece was removed from the lathe and the ends cut and sanded, I gave it three heavy coats of sealer in an effort to keep the piece from splitting, which partially worked.  It did split some, but not drastically.  The piece was stained, lacquered, foam strips were cut and glued in place, and the lazy Susan installed.  Here is the completed project.

I have a pretty extensive collection of shed deer antlers laying around, so I found one that had a straight piece near the base and made that into a handle of sorts to spin the wheel.  Hopefully this device will minimize the amount of flies, both completed and staged, that I accumulate on my bench.