Research is like arm wrestling with Mother Nature. If you win you learn something- if you lose you try again.

Jim started wood working and woodturning in high school, but stopped when he went to college where he fell in love with science. Upon graduation with degrees in chemistry he spent the next 40 years doing basic and applied research on such diverse things as solid rocket propellants, bread dough, solar energy, nuclear weapons, laser targets, adhesives and epoxy resins. In his professional career he spent 25 years working with epoxy resins and has 21 U.S. patents.  If you have used a touch screen in a mall or played video poker in a casino you may have used a surface acoustic wave touch screen that relies on a UV curable epoxy resin he invented.

When he re-started woodturning he decided to use what he knew, the scientific method, and especially epoxy resins, in his wood turnings. His main interest is in breaking new ground in wood art by using science, epoxy resins and technology. Examples are: using microwave ovens to dry wood, using vacuum to impregnate wood with drying oils or epoxy resins or using heat to speed up the drying or cure of finishes and to anneal stresses from wood. He has published many of his findings in articles in the American Woodturner, Woodturning Design and Woodturning (UK). Currently he is focused on Bamboo/epoxy vessels and a new form of construction that he calls “Pseudo Segmenting”.

Jim lives in Camarillo, California, with his wife. He is a member of the Channel Islands Woodturners, the American Association of Woodturners, Studio Channel Islands Art Center and the American Bamboo Society.