STL326: No Finish? No Problem!
Seri Robinson, a.k.a. Dr. Spalting, says the best food-safe finish is no finish at all.Seri’s book about wood toxicity and maintenance can be found on Amazon:
A great guide for budding wood workers, parents, and future wood scientists. For anyone who has ever used, owned, or been curious about wood of any kind, this guide offers a fantastic summary of the science behind the material’s anatomy, chemistry, and general upkeep. With easy-to-understand descriptions, you’ll never have difficulty deciding what wood to work with or how to clean your boarded floors again. Offering a general overview of the material, this guide’s long list of topics includes best uses of wood in the home, finishing and coloring, woodworking machines, and unsafe woods. Get to know one of the most prevalent materials in your home, and use this guide to master any creative, cleaning, decorating, or furnishing projects you may have! |
Their sci-fi series, Ardulum, which uses wood science as the tech base, can also be found on Amazon:
Neek does not believe—and has paid dearly for it with exile from her home for her heretical views. Yet, when the crew stumbles into an armed confrontation between the sheriffs of the Charted Systems and an unknown species, fate deals Neek an unexpected hand in the form of a slave girl—a child whose ability to telepathically manipulate cellulose is reminiscent of that of an Ardulan god. Forced to reconcile her beliefs, Neek chooses to protect her, but is the child the key to her salvation, or will she lead them all to their deaths? |
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The Charted Systems are in pieces. Mercy’s Pledge is destroyed, and her captain dead. With no homes to return to, the remaining crew sets off on a journey to find the mythical planet of Ardulum—a planet where Emn might find her people, and Neek the answers she’s long sought. Finding the planet, however, brings a host of uncomfortable truths about Ardulum’s vision for the galaxy and Neek’s role in a religion that refuses to release her. Neek must balance her planet’s past and the unchecked power of the Ardulans with a budding relationship and a surprising revelation about her own genealogy. |
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One year after saving the Neek homeworld and redefining the people’s religion, the crew of the Scarlet Lucidity returns to the Charted Systems for a much-needed break. For Nicholas and Yorden, the Systems will always be home, but for Emn and Atalant, too many memories compound with Emn’s strange new illness to provide much relaxation. Tales from Ardulum continues the journey of Atalant, Emn, Yorden, Nicholas, and Salice as they try to define their place in a galaxy that no longer needs them while battling the artifacts of Ardulan colonization. Other stories include Yorden’s acquisition of the Mercy’s Pledge (and his grudge against the galaxy), Atalant’s exile from her homeworld, Ekimet and Savath’s romance, and many others. |
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Consumed by guilt, Guard Four trawls space, hopping from spaceport to spaceport, hoping to find and bring Atalant home with exonerating evidence that Ardulum, the traveling planet her people worship, is no mystic deity. At the edges of the known galaxy, Guard Four finds the shattered remains of a murdered world – a world of her genetic cousins who could have provided the evidence she desperately seeks. Ardulum, it seems, is no fairy tale but rather a bogeyman, set on destroying anyone who gets between it and its biological imperative to reproduce. And in its seat of governance rules Atalant – god to a planet she swore did not, could not, exist. Guard Four must unravel Ardulan fact from myth to save her friend and the billions of other beings threatened by the Void – a tear in space created from Ardulum’s most recent birthing event. But how does one bring a god of a killer planet home? And how is Guard Four supposed to stop the Void without giving it the only thing it wants – the destruction of Ardulum? |
Seri Robinsons ongoing work at Oregon State University can be found here: www.northernspalting.com
Comments
That was fascinating. Just off to read through all her previous articles. First off I need to change out my mineral oiled endgrain cutting board. Such a great communicator where the passion for the topics really shines though.
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