Boomerang Dave's Hardwood Boomerangs

It may come as a surprise to some of my customers but I have decided to cease normal production of this type of boomerang. I have been making them since 1996 and have not only sold quite a few, but have won awards in craftsmanship contests with some. Unfortunately sales for these boomerangs have been down recently. The production of them requires lots of extra work and each one of these becomes a one of a kind boomerang. That makes these boomerangs more expensive than plywood or plastic ones, and many people are not willing to pay that extra cost. I expect that I will make some more of these boomerangs in the future, if only for my own enjoyment. If you are interested in purchasing a boomerang like these, please write and I'll try to make you something special.

Dave Hendricks

The boomerangs below are in my personal collection and are not for sale. They are shown below as examples of some of the hardwood boomerangs I have made in the past. If you are interested in purchasing a boomerang like these, please contact me via email at Dave and I can work something out. A word of caution, although these boomerangs are meant to be used, the amount of time put into them and the materials used warrant a little common sense. One of my customers once commented that using one of these was like throwing fine furniture. I do not recommend these as a starter boomerang. There is usually a certain amount of learning curve associated with throwing a boomerang. I would not want to see you, the customer, bang up a particularly nice boomerang during that process. I suggest trying one of our plywood models first.

Some of you have requested larger images of my hardwood boomerangs. Because of the space on the server, I cannot add these to the site. I have, however, been saving images to several albums on Webshots and can provide links to those albums here. There you will find photos, scans of photos and direct scans of many of the hardwood boomerangs I have made. In addition, there is an album of the "artistic" boomerangs I have made, which include special paint schemes, special shapes, and my attempts at aboriginal inspired dot artwork.

Hardwood Boomerangs Album 1, 38 photos
Hardwood Boomerangs Album 2, 49 photos
Hardwood Boomerangs, Scans, 36 images
Herb Smith Style Boomerangs, 31 photos
Artistic Boomerangs, 62 photos

	This is the very first lap joint boomerang I ever made. It was made from a piece of wood, rescued from the firewood pile. I liked the figure near the knot and decided that I could resaw the piece and get a boomerang from it. I had recently visited Dr Fred Malmberg and he explained how he made boomerangs this way. I followed his advice and this is the result. At that time the boomerang did not have the additional inlay plugs of different wood. As can be imagined, this boomerang holds a special place in my collection.
	This boomerang was made for a 1999 Craftsmanship contest in Va Beach and received a first place award. The boomerang is made from Ebony and the very rare Pink Ivory wood. Pieces were cut from each wing and inserted in the opposite wing. Inlay dots of the opposite woods were also inserted in the wings. I sure like having the contest in Va Beach!
	In 1999 there was another contest with everyone making boomerangs from wood supplied by Bob White. Most of this was very old wood in cherry, oak or maple. I ended up with a few sets of pieces and mixed the oak and cherry to make this very nice Vee.
	Of course that meant I had two more pieces of wood in cherry and oak so I just had to make the partner to that boomerang. This is the one I entered in the contest. If you look close you can tell that the Oak and Cherry are reversed from the previous boomerang. It's almost hard to believe they are made from the same pieces. The inlay dots include cocobolo, shedua, bubinga, maple, and pink ivory.
	This boomerang was made in my quest to make something new and different with hardwood. I made several different Quads, in various woods. The Quad is a design by Michael "Gel" Girvin. This cherry one is one of four I made from that wood. Other Quads were made from Honey Locust, Ebony and Rosewood. The ebony one featured mother of pearl inlay dots and took first place in the contest. This cherry Quad remains in my collection.
	Here are two really beautiful Spalted Maple boomerangs. The pieces are what remained after making a set of boomerangs in 2002. Those boomerangs, which had even more spalting in the wood, now live with Clay Dawson, so I made another set. The pieces are bookmatched on both boomerangs. Both boomerangs perform well and were made in 2003.
	This one is not in my collection, but not far away. A co-worker asked me if I needed some mulberry wood. He had a tree come down and was getting rid of the pieces. I grabbed my chainsaw mill and managed to saw some into boards for myself. As a thank you, I made him this boomerang. He likes that he has a memento made from the tree.
	Some of the perils of working with exotic, figured, rare woods are evident here. This "almost" boomerang broke while I was sanding it. The wood used is curly Jarrah wood from Australia. The would cost me a considerable amount and after resawing the wood, cutting laps, gluing and shaping the boomerang all I ended up with was some really expensive kindling.
	This one is my latest creation. It's a triblade made from Quilted Maple. The quilting is not as pronounced on one of the wings but it is very nice indeed. I want a nice boomerang as a gift for someone and this might just be the right one. Besides, it's really cold here and I can't do much in the shop. At least working on something like this makes me feel good.

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Changes last made on: April 23, 2008