Offcuts: Dropping By My Shop

It was a day filled with great promise – mild temperatures, low humidity, and gentle breezes filled the forecast. My wife would be gone for the day, leaving me eight hours of uninterrupted shop time. There was leftover brisket in the fridge for a sandwich.

My morning consisted of completing several desk clocks, a design that features a quartz clock face set into the front of a small box. I rubbed out the last coat of finish, and wiped the clocks down in preparation for the finish coat. I brushed that on, set the clocks on the rack to dry, and by the time I cleaned my brush and disposed of the rags I heard the siren call of that brisket.

Retreating to the house, I slathered bread with mustard and layered on slices of brisket. With a pickle and a cold glass of tea, I was ready. The forecast had proven true, and as my clocks were drying in the shop I enjoyed a beautiful day and a delicious meal. Life is good.

On my way back to the shop, even from a distance I could tell that something was wrong. The door was ajar.

As I stepped across the threshold, my eye was immediately drawn to a huge splat of purple goop on the once-gleaming cast iron wing of my table saw. Another, a streak of purple 10" long streaming down the top of my bandsaw, ended in a disgusting glop on the table.

I recognized it at once for what it was: purple pokeberry. For those not acquainted with this, I will explain. Around this part of North Carolina, we are scourged with a vile weed known as “pokeweed.” Pokeweed grows on purple-tinged green stalks with purple-veined leaves that produce purple berries that call to hungry birds the way a brisket sandwich calls to me.

I suspect that these birds go to special flight schools to become pokeberry bombardiers. They eat the pokeberries and then deposit the purple aftermath on windshields, patio furniture, window screens and white vinyl siding. Particularly skilled birds – no doubt the “top guns” in their class – are even able to target their purple calling card directly in the center of the upper glass panel of your front door five minutes before dinner guests arrive.

So, I entered to find a squawking, frantically flapping mockingbird trying to escape my shop. After several attempts, I managed to chase the bird out. Let me tell you something: I’m a gentle man, but I wanted to kill that bird. Yeah, I know it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. Saw the movie. Read the book. Liked them both. But what this mockingbird did to my shop deserved punishment by barbecue spit.
Splats of purple adorned my lathe; the white pegboard, streaming down my squares, marking gauges and awls; my workbench and router table. Two fluorescent fixtures dripped purple. I cleaned up at least 10 individual splotches.
You know how you find something in the last place you look? I found something in the last place I looked – that dirty bird had left purple avian signatures a water buffalo would be proud to call his own, directly onto my clocks.
My clock box lids lift off so you can hide something inside, and hidden inside two of them was a purple gift. Right down in the boxes. Luke Skywalker’s aim on the Death Star wasn’t as good.

I’ve subscribed to woodworking magazines and home improvement journals most of my adult life. I always read the “Reader’s Hints” and “Expert Advice” sections, and never have I seen any advice about how to get purple pokeberry out of a partially dry oil/varnish finish. Not once can I recall Bob Flexner or Norm Abram addressing this issue. I receive dozens of tool catalogs, and in none of them have I ever seen a specialty tool that facilitates this removal. Are there special nook-and-cranny chisels or scrapers for removing purple pokeberry goop from inside little boxes? Apparently not!

So, friends, don’t be the next purple pokeberry victim. Heed my advice: always take the time to secure your shop door – even when you have a lunch of brisket waiting.



Mike Stafford of Rocky Mount, N.C., is a woodworker who enjoys making boxes, small decorative objects, and woodturned projects in a 20' x 24' shop with double French doors he has learned to close tightly.
ILLUSTRATION: KEN BRADY
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