Origin
The orgins of The Natural Woodshop
The origin of both The Natural Woodshop name and its logo design are a culmination of Bill’s favorite things: woodworking and baseball. Bill loves combining nature and handcrafting to create beautiful & functional pieces . His other passion is baseball; his favorite movie is “The Natural” (a classic 1984 film starring Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs). In “The Natural Woodshop” logo, users might see just a split in the wood, while others (fans of “The Natural” movie ) may have noticed the famed lightning bolt. For those unfamiliar with the film, lightning strikes an oak tree, splintering it. Roy Hobbs makes a baseball bat from the wood, burning a lightning bolt and the name “Wonderboy” onto the barrel. A remarkably similar scenario happened to Bill in 2019; an oak tree fell in his backyard on a stormy night, and Bill and his son, Blaise, crafted their first baseball bat from that fallen tree - burning “Blaiseball” onto the barrel (a fun nickname which captures their combined passion for the game).
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About
Meet the woodworker
Bill fell in love with woodworking as a young child while watching his grandfather in his woodshop. When his “Pop-pop” passed away in the mid 1990’s, Bill inherited his 50-year-old functional lathe, which was his first official woodshop machine! Once Bill graduated from Penn State University in the early 2000’s with a major in Mathematics, he found himself with a full-time employment and a steady income, which meant he finally had money to begin his woodshop arsenal. He made one big swooping purchase from a local woodworking store near his residence in the suburbs of Pennsylvania, and quickly began building his dream woodshop.
As a hobby, Bill enjoys anytime he can get into the woodshop and craft anything from furniture to baseball bats (… or whatever is needed for the house). Bill has created custom beds, turned bowls, floating shelves, unique chests, dressers, toys, etc. Bill continually seeks out new techniques and applies them whenever he can. He enjoys applying his math skills along with the variety of challenges and problem-solving woodworking presents.
Since Bill designs and develops websites as another hobby, he decided to finally have a little fun with his woodshop and design a cool looking logo for branding his work. Once he designed his logo, he took it a step further to build a small website to provide general information to share with everyone. Maybe his hobby will someday turn into a small business, but in the meantime, all the building blocks seem to be in place!
Anytime you see “The Natural Woodshop” logo, you will know you are looking at a handcrafted piece produced by William T. Bonnell, who invested heart, soul & passion into his work. Please feel free to contact him, if you have any comments, questions, or cool project ideas!
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