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Within each Sculpted Forest wooden pen and wine bottle stopper lays a story
so unique and intricate that no two collectible pieces are the same.
From: The Sandpaper, May 17, 2006
Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
Reproduction of any Sculpted Forest text or pictures is strictly prohibited without consent.
sculpted forest
sculpted forest
Wedding, Corporate, Father's Day, Graduation Gifts: Custom, Handcrafted Wooden Pens and Wine Bottle Stoppers
Wooden Pens & Wine Bottle Stoppers so uniquely beautiful, they are timeless pieces of art.
100% Satisfaction Guaranteed!        Free Shipping!

Custom, Handcrafted Wooden Pens and Wine Bottle Stoppers
Wooden Pens & Wine Bottle Stoppers so uniquely beautiful, they are timeless pieces of art.
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sculpted forest
Sculpted Forest
A Wood Lover's
One-Stop Shop
T
hough he has been shaping wood into works of
art for more than 50 years, woodturner Hank
DiPasquale of Brant Beach started selling his one-of-a-
kind  handcrafted pens and wine bottle stoppers as a
small business venture with his daughter, Dana, just
last month. The pair calls the operation Sculpted Forest,
and examples of his work can be found at the web site
by the same name, at Island craft shows and on display
in his two-car-garage-cum-home-workshop.

DiPasquale is a retired state transportation authority
employee and Navy man, who was an airplane mechanic
before he took on apprenticeship to become a pattern
maker for naval ship parts in 1951.

“Since then, I've been hooked on wood,” he said.

He and his wife, Maria, bought their Brant Beach home
in 1964.

Here and there he finds unusual, misshapen chunks of
tree and holds onto them, knowing he will put them to
good creative use back at his shop. He often draws
from the pile of firewood he keeps out- side and has
been known to break down furniture and transform the
parts into new treasures. DiPasquale is a member of the
Cape Atlantic Woodturners Club based in Mays
landing and a former member of the Ocean County club
based in Lakewood. The turning clubs connect people
who share a common passion and serve as a vehicle for
exchanging ideas and offering each other valuable
feedback and tips. Recently, he has been asked to
demonstrate his pen turning techniques for the group.

In his shop are examples of the many different
directions in which his skill can take him. There are
spherical bottle stoppers and writing instruments in
every imaginable style and color - heftier and more
masculine-looking pens, slimmer and daintier feminine-
looking pens, with body patterns that are loud and
funky or subdued and sophisticated. Here is a lamp; a
pull chain weight; a toy top, a yo-yo; the beginning
stages of a bowl. In storage is the cradle he made for
Dana when she was a baby.

Today, Dana live sin Chicago, Ill., working toward her
doctorate in exercise physiology while helping to run
Sculpted Forest. Technology, of course, makes it
possible for her and her father to work as business
partners even with so many miles between them – “We’
re on the phone just about everyday,” she said. While
Hank deals directly with the wood, Dana is responsible
for almost everything else, including the web site, www.
sculptedforest.com, from the layout and photography
to the written copy and editing.

“It’s been a lot harder than I thought it would be,” she
said of getting the operation up and running. Creating
the site was her first adventure into web design, and it
took her about a month from start to finish. “I guess it’s
the perfectionist in me,” she said. “ I just wanted it to
really show what my dad can do,” so she would not be
satisfied with anything less than the most accurate
representation of her father’s talent and skill.

She and her father have always been close – “like two
peas in a pod,” she said – but since adding this new
facet to their relationship, she said, she is finding “I
don’t think I realized how shy he was.” If not for the
encouragement from family and friends who told him
his products were magnificent and marketable, he
would have happily gone on as he always has.

“He basically lives in the garage,” she said.

While he clearly is capable of building a wide variety of
things from wood, Hank DiPasquale decided to
concentrate on pens and bottle stoppers as his
business because, he said, too much diversity is not
necessarily a good thing – like a menu that’s too big,
Maria DiPasquale chimed in.

“I wanted something I could market,” he added.

“They make great gifts,” she agreed, explaining the
items are practical and appropriate for, say, a college
graduate, a professor, a secretary or boss, without
being too personal. In Jewish custom, a pen is a
traditional gift at a bar or bat mitzvah. One of
DiPasquale’s customers, a businessman, bought a
number of pens to give out to his clients.

And because each specimen is unique, “people
remember who gave it to them,” Hank DiPasquale said.
Branching out into complete desktop sets – pen, holder
and letter opener – is an idea he considers for the future
of the business.

As a pattern maker, the three basic wood types he
encountered were walnut, mahogany and pine, he said.
Now the varieties of works with number in the
hundreds, come from all over the world and include
holly, maples, cedars, sycamore, and ash; purpleheart,
redheart, ebony and live; spalted tamarind, panga
panga, putumuju and coolinah. He can describe the
difference in texture and shape-ability between the dark-
toned and durable bocote and the South American
hardwood cocobolo. He can explain how the ambrosia
beetle carries on its back a fungus and, when the beetle
burrows into a piece of wood, how the wood reacts to
the fungus by forming interesting swirl and stripe
patterns.

“It’s an education for me too,” he said.

He can start with a raw piece or a limb of a tree but, like
a surfboard shaper, he begins many projects with
blanks, prepared blocks of wood, of which he has
hundreds in containers among the myriad other
containers – for tools, whittling supplies, collections of
different colored sawdust, wine corks, matchbooks – in
his neatly organized shop, which also houses his
drilling, cutting, sanding and grinding machinery. Some
of his blocks come from a supply house where they are
dye-injected and stamped.

The process goes something like this” DiPasquale
selects a block and places it in a lathe, which spins it
while he roughs it out with a gouge until the surface is
smooth. The block he used to demonstrate the machine
was made from pieces of red oak and holly glued
together. He uses other tools for rounding or shaping
the piece, to create curves or lines.

With an accidental slip of a sharp tool, he said,
“sometimes you do a dig – so you change the design.”

After he has achieved the desired shape, there is
sanding, polishing and lacquering to be done. Whether
it’s going to be a pen or a sine bottle stopper or
corkscrew/stopper combo, he adds the corresponding
hardware.

Discussing what types of wood he likes best,
DiPasquale said he looks for woods that are “just
grainy,” because they allow for more possibilities. The
same piece of grainy wood, cut in opposite directions,
can produce very different results, he pointed out.

“I try to get the piece that maybe is going to be
something different,” he said, pulling at a gnarled
corner of bark on one unwieldly-looking hunk of trunk.

Always developing ideas for ways to come at his craft
from different angles, DiPasquale has also move don to
working with other kinds of materials, such as
countertop laminate. One example is a pen body shaped
from speckled Corian.

His finished pens, which carry a satisfaction guarantee
range in price from $149-279. The wine bottle stoppers
range from $79-109. Purchases can be made online at
www.sculptedforest.com, and special, customized
orders are welcome.

He suggested a person might provide him with a piece
of furniture belonging to a late loved one or having
some other sentimental value – he can turn the leg of
Granny’s old rocking chair, for example, into a beautiful
writing tool or decorative piece that combines profound
meaning with a useful function in a much smaller
package.



- Victoria Ford
                  Photographs by Ryan Morrill

HIS TURN: Hank DiPasquale (left) in
retirement has turned a lifelong passion for
woodworking into a small internet-based
business that he runs with his daughter,
Dana, in Chicago. His handcrafted pens
(above) and wine bottle stoppers make
precious, one-of-a-kind gifts.