Working with the grain

When Harry Bandish looks at his hand-crafted wooden boxes, his eyes go over every detail of the wood, looking for a curve that might need a little more sanding or a spot that might need polishing. He considers himself detail-oriented.

In his garage, his tools hang in a neat row; wrenches, hammers and screwdrivers are arranged by size on a pegboard above his saws and paint cans from past projects — carefully arranged by hue.

“I see you sitting there,” his wife, Barbara, says to him, “with your rulers, protractors and pencils to get it just right.”

Bandish’s eye for detail is a trait he picked up from his time spent as an engineering draftsman in Milwaukee. When he switched to woodworking in 1984, he found his background helped with his new craft. His first foray into the field was building kite frames in his shop in Biloxi, Miss. But for the last 10 years, he’s been building unique wooden boxes, cut at a curve to highlight the grain of the wood.

Bandish makes these jewelry and keepsake boxes, which he calls pods, in his garage studio. These detailed works of art require quality materials, and Bandish says he devotes as much attention to selecting his wood and finding the most attractive grains as he does crafting it.

“I might look through 50 pieces of wood and not find one,” he says. “The end of the board kind of shows you what the grain might look like. You have to read the boards.”

He and his wife moved to Mote Ranch about 25 years ago. In 2004, He won first place at the state fair for an artistic wooden hanging of the event’s 100-year anniversary logo, which was reminiscent of stained glass. That marked his foray into pods — he knew he could make something that was both decorative and functional.

Before he starts a pod, he makes a replica with Styrofoam and cardboard. Then, using woods, such as aromatic cedar, purpleheart and rosewood, Bandish glues strips together to form a solid block, then cuts into the wood using scroll saws and band saws in his garage.

“I look for the grain,” he says. “It makes you or breaks you. If the grain is plain, it doesn’t look good. You have to pick out grains that enhance the box.”

Sometimes he also uses a solid block of cedar, if the grain looks promising. He looks at the end of the board to make an educated guess at how it might turn out.

He’s always got five or six different pod projects going, and he says he spends most of his time planning the next project — especially right before he goes to sleep.

“I wake up in the morning and it’s there,” he says.

His customers come to him by word of mouth and at the 15 to 20 local art shows he displays his boxes in throughout the year. He’s also a member of the Creative Arts Association of Lakewood Ranch, and has a profile on its website with photos and pricing for his work. In addition, he has set up displays at a few local venues — Family Jewelry in Lakewood Ranch and the Manatee Performing Arts Center.

“My name gets around,” he says.

He also sells the smallest versions of his boxes to some car dealerships, for the pods are the perfect size to fit a key and a fob to a new car.

He’s dabbled in other art forms, such as sculpting and painting, but the way his face lights up when he’s showing off his latest piece, he can’t hide his passion for woodworking.

“I like working with wood,” he says. “It seems to be natural for me.”