This is an account of my wood threading saga.

As mentioned elsewhere, I started by turning chopsticks, then things gone wild. Pestles, garlic crushers, dishes, bowls, weed pots, hollow forms, lidded boxes... tumbled out of my lathe in succession... until I hit a speed bump. The obstacle was a simple toothpick holder. I made one for my mom, in the fashion of the slim boxes you see in my store, with a friction fitted cap.

But in the overpopulated, agitated and hostile environment within my mom's handbag, the holder's cap tended to fall off and spilled its gut. Engineering solution called for a more secure, threaded cap, so off I went trying to figure out how to cut spirals.

A researcher by training, it did not take me long to gather all the information about wood threading. I learned about jigs that claim to thread all kinds of wood in a jiffy, and the hand chasers, simple cutters with teeth that required a steep learning curve to master. Jigs sound easier, but they all look kinda clunky for a mini lathe, too big for my limited real estate, and too expensive for my limited bank account. With such a set of limitations, my viable option was to obtain the skills rather than procure the tools. Compared to those jigs, the simple hand chaser looked a lot more appealing.

So, how did I acquired the skill? I went to England, searched for the best Wood-Chasing Master, and apprenticed with him for five long years--like the martial art disciples in Chinese Kung Fu movies... Nahhh, just kidding! I jumped on the internet, searched for thread chasing, then followed the links. Blessed are those who teach on the Internet! Like learning how to bike, this wood threading business is easier than it sounds, but more difficult than it looks. You have to advance the tool at the right speed against the slowly rotating wood stock so that all the teeth fall into the same groove, chasing each other up the spiral. Sounds impossible, considering all the variables involved, but looks so easy watching the Master's demo.

So, I got the chasers, mounted an expensive boxwood block on the lathe, mumbled a sacrificial chant, and began cutting away. Several blocks later, I started to get it. Several months later, I passed the point-of-no-return and became a twisted spiral addict. "Stuck in a groove" took on a special meaning. It is such a satisfying feeling when the two threaded parts fit together smoothly!

Unlike the friction fitted lid, threaded parts just hold on to each other with minimum stress to the timber. The secured cap does add portability to the piece, as proven inside my mom's handbag--the on-going beta testing site. So far, so good...Until I hit a series of speed bumps.

This time, the obstacles are the timber themselves. There are only a hand full of woods that accept threading easily, most are expensive. But as a wood collector, I have more than a hand full, most are beautiful or rarely seen. It is such a waste if I limited my work to a few timbers, so I tried to thread everything: soft woods, porous woods, fibrous woods, and then all kinds of palm nuts. I tried stabilize the woods, tried straight cut, cross cut, angled cut, whichever way work. It's R&D all over again (the thing I used to do in my previous life). Pushing the envelope comes with reward and frustration. Sometimes, I spent the whole time in my workshop and had nothing to show at the end of the day. I went to bed frustrated, dreaming of spirals.

But when I look at the collection of exquisite threaded boxes that I bet you can not find elsewhere, it's all worth it. Up until now, I am still learning the art of wood chasing and enjoy it tremendously.

By the way, my shop logo isn't a self-portrait of me stooping over my lathe, despite the striking resemblance.

Those hands with fingers are actually my threading tools, an end-teethed one for the outer thread and the side-teethed one for cutting the inner. The logo also figuratively spells "LVo," my artist signature. It took me a few designing attempts to come up with such an elegant logo, impregnated with meaning...Well, I better stop right here, to prevent a self-inflicted bragging overdose!

When their hairs already turned white, their foot steps hesitated, my grandparents bought a house in Vung Tau, a quiet coastal city near Saigon. It was a house with a long front porch and a short garden strip on one side. There, my grandma planted a coconut and a mango tree. The neighbors commented: " It took a very long time for these trees to bear fruits, why bother to grow them at your age?". But grandma had her own agenda. In the southern Vietnamese pronunciation, "coconut" (dua) means "enough", and "mango" (xoai or xai) means "spend". These double meaning trees symbolized her wish to just have "enough to spend", in the spirit of "give us this day our daily bread".

It was during those hard years, post 1975, when there wasn't enough of anything to go around. Her wish was granted, plus a lot more. I was pretty sure. Since after a few years, the whole neighborhood, up and down the street, owed her money. During my summer vacations spent at their place, I witnessed how that happened. The gates of their house were never closed. During hot days, people quietly got themselves inside and slept under the front porch, where the cool tiles offered some relief, then quietly left. Once in awhile, they went inside. Young and old, they just dropped in, searched for my grandma, then spilled their marital complains, their financial troubles... she listened, she consoled, she advised, she "lent" money, knowing that they would not be able to pay her back. When nothing can be done, she cried with them.

I was just a small kid then, almost invisible to the grown-ups, so they did not mind me snooping around during these episodes. I observed, I listened, I remembered...and then I realized--many years later-- that my grandma was the richest person I had ever known--despite the fact that she had to sell off part of that house tin roof as scrap metal in order to survive, after she had nothing else to sell. Thanks to the coconut-mango magic, she was always rich enough to share, whether it's her time, money, or just rain water from her cistern. As a bonus, the trees did bear many seasons of fruit. A few years after my grandpa passed away, she sold the house and moved to Saigon with us, leaving these magical trees behind.

Later, we migrated with grandma to the US. One thing that pleased her tremendously about this new place was when she looked around, no one was poorer than us! As for my grandma, and also for my parents, they were never poor, they always knew how to count what they "Have". "Be thankful, it could be much worse", I was often told. When I want to start something but think it would take too long, or when I wish I could have a bit more of this and that, I think of grandma's trees.

Acorn from spalted mango with coconut palm cap