D.O.L. Woodcraft, Lithia, FL
Jeff Goble spent most of his 34 year Army career in Special Forces – The Green Berets – serving in operations around the world and positions at the highest levels of our military. He retired in 2015, a 100% disabled veteran in search of a second calling. He found it in woodworking, an often solitary yet fulfilling craft with tangible results, and an almost therapeutic effect on the maker; the opposite of the high intensity world of Special Operations.
Jeff didn't leave his military past behind. On the contrary, he draws his inspiration from things in his military life, and names pieces for that particular memory. His most popular collection of exotic hardwood boards are called “Selection Boards,” inspired by the board of officers who ultimately select soldiers to wear the Green Beret.
Jeff is formally trained and certified in woodwork by the Florida School of Woodwork, Tampa, Florida, where he was trained by world renowned artisans and craftsmen such as Kate Swann, Michael Fortune, Kelly Parker, Michael Cullen, and Philip Morley. He has a simple approach to designing and making pieces, allowing the wood to speak for itself. He believes the maker's role in the process is to help the wood continue to live, in beauty, pleasing people for years to come.
He uses exotic hardwood strips reclaimed at a mill in Sarasota, Florida, approximately four feet long and one inch square. He joins the strips using strong pipe clamps and plenty of glue (to compensate for the twisted and warped strips) in order to form twelve inch wide four feet long planks. The planks are milled, cut, and shaped, using traditional as well as modern woodworking techniques, into various sizes and shapes of artistic boards and original carvings. Each is unique. He embellishes some of his work with figures or surfaces burned into the wood with pyrography. He finishes his pieces with a food-safe, all natural oil finish produced in Florida.
