About My Image Buttons

Keepers & Gifts These two images are of a dodecahedron and a sphere; both about 4" in diameter and made of cast iron. They were found by my life long friend Ron Wheeler when he was about 6 or 7 years old. His family moved here from Tennessee in 1952 and bought a piece of property here in Ormond Beach, Florida that had once belonged to John D. Rockefeller. The property was about 80% covered with Florida jungle in the form of a low land hardwood forest, swamp and palmetto scrub. In the middle of the 20% that had been cleared was the burned out remains of what use to be a get-away house used by Mr. Rockefeller when he lived at the Casements here in Ormond Beach. The way the story goes the house had been abandon for quite a few years and was being used by transients who managed to burn it down one cold winter night. While the Wheeler family was clearing away the rubble and building their own home some years later, Ron found this dodecahedron, the sphere and "several other shapes". He could not remember what the other shapes were but the dodecahedron and sphere managed to survive. I suspect the set was the 5 platonic solids, except for the sphere of course (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, Icosahedron). Ron said he and his brothers placed no special value on them so most of the set was lost through the years. However, he swears they are still on the property, somewhere! Ron made that big leap to another level of existence in 2006 and these 2 artifacts are now in the hands of his widow, Marlyn Wheeler.

My Best Work This image is of 3 regular triangles (Florida bald cypress), 3 pentagons (California red wood) and 1 octagon (mahogany), floating in finishing oil. I try not to waste anything, especially when it's already pre-cut. An open faced polygon is made from segments as seen in Polyhedron 129, which is made from regular triangles and hexagons. In order to make the polygons, extremely precise angles must be cut across the ends of each segment. The little pieces trimmed off have the exact same angle as the segment so they can be fitted together to make a small solid faced polygon. A few coats of finishing oil and they are ready to display or give away.