Transmigration Woodworking
Eagle, ID
Transmigration Woodworking was born from a lifelong passion for everything skateboard, a deep-seated love of woodworking instilled by my grandfather, and an unfortunate catastrophic skateboarding injury.
I have been into skateboarding my entire life and enjoyed skating nearly every day until I crushed my left tibial plateau in a skateboarding crash in February of 2016. I was immobile and unable to walk for 4 months and was struggling mentally with adjusting to being stuck on the couch or in crutches instead of active and skating every day.
Thankfully I had a good friend that knew I was having difficulty adjusting to a sedentary lifestyle. He stepped in, would pick me up, and take me to his woodshop where he would set things up for me to do from the comfort of a stool.
My grandfather was a woodworker and I enjoyed my time with him helping him with his projects. He was a man of few words so I cherish all of the time I had that I could spend with him getting creative and working with wood.
My friend’s woodshop has a wood lathe and after my injury I was introduced to how it functions. I fell in love with it and decided to really focus my energy into perfecting my skills. As my health improved and I continued to fall back in love with woodworking I was looking for a challenge in the shop and found inspiration in several Instagram accounts of people working with old and broken skateboards. I had my own stack of boards that I had skated and saved so I was able to use them to introduce myself to all things recycled skateboards. It was incredibly hard to begin with. Each board required me to remove the grip tape, remove the residue left from said grip tape, and then sand to remove the art on the bottom of the board and the clear coat from the top of the board. Once the board from sanded back to raw wood is when the board is finally cut up and re-glued to produce a usable block of wood. Most other woodworkers’ step 1 is actually closer to step 5 or 6.
I chose the business name Transmigration Woodworking as a play on the Buddhist idea of the transmigration of the soul or reincarnation. Wanting to play with the idea that I am giving these old, broken, and forgotten boards a new life as household wares, artwork, and custom projects.
I have been into skateboarding my entire life and enjoyed skating nearly every day until I crushed my left tibial plateau in a skateboarding crash in February of 2016. I was immobile and unable to walk for 4 months and was struggling mentally with adjusting to being stuck on the couch or in crutches instead of active and skating every day.
Thankfully I had a good friend that knew I was having difficulty adjusting to a sedentary lifestyle. He stepped in, would pick me up, and take me to his woodshop where he would set things up for me to do from the comfort of a stool.
My grandfather was a woodworker and I enjoyed my time with him helping him with his projects. He was a man of few words so I cherish all of the time I had that I could spend with him getting creative and working with wood.
My friend’s woodshop has a wood lathe and after my injury I was introduced to how it functions. I fell in love with it and decided to really focus my energy into perfecting my skills. As my health improved and I continued to fall back in love with woodworking I was looking for a challenge in the shop and found inspiration in several Instagram accounts of people working with old and broken skateboards. I had my own stack of boards that I had skated and saved so I was able to use them to introduce myself to all things recycled skateboards. It was incredibly hard to begin with. Each board required me to remove the grip tape, remove the residue left from said grip tape, and then sand to remove the art on the bottom of the board and the clear coat from the top of the board. Once the board from sanded back to raw wood is when the board is finally cut up and re-glued to produce a usable block of wood. Most other woodworkers’ step 1 is actually closer to step 5 or 6.
I chose the business name Transmigration Woodworking as a play on the Buddhist idea of the transmigration of the soul or reincarnation. Wanting to play with the idea that I am giving these old, broken, and forgotten boards a new life as household wares, artwork, and custom projects.
