Time on his hands

CHENEY – If you want to know what time it is in Charlie Prentice’s house in Cheney, no problem. There’s a clock pretty much every place you look.

Prentice makes clocks big and small, maneuvering his scroll saw with the precision of a surgeon and the art of a Renaissance master. Some of the scroll work is so small and intricate that it’s hard to believe it was produced by the hands of a man with carpel tunnel syndrome and arthritis.

One piece – a “United We Stand” wall hanging – shows the Statue of Liberty and her torch against a background of stars from the American flag, stars so tiny that they require a double-zero blade that is about the diameter of dental floss – and a magnifying glass for Prentice to be sure he’s inserted it in the right direction in the saw.

Prentice, 68, who has lived in Cheney most of his life, retired as general manger of Sprague Grange Supply in 2000 after 34 years. He spent his first six months of retirement taking it easy, but then he accompanied his wife, Carol, to a craft show in Moses Lake. There he met a man who had scroll saw work on display.

“I thought to myself, ‘Well, I could do that,’ ” Prentice said. And so he did.

He bought a scroll saw, some wood and some patterns – which don’t come with instructions, by the way – and set to work. His wife had always wanted a tall clock for the living room, so he made her one. He built the case for the five-section, 6-foot, 4-inch tall clock, bolted together the sections and set about creating the scroll work, etching a piece of glass for the front and placing two pieces of solid black walnut on the head of the clock – pieces from a tree that came from a friend’s yard. They look like they were turned on a lathe but their design was, in fact, created with his scroll saw.

When he was well into the project, which took about 80 hours to complete, he found the little note that came with the pattern – “not for beginners, project for advanced craftsmen.”

“I was committed by then, so I saw it through,” Prentice said.

Since then he has created some 300 clocks (he buys the mechanical parts from Wisconsin) and other objects with his scroll saw – from the delicate snowflake wall clock to pieces of art such as religious symbols and an eagle feather with inlaid eagle, desk objects like a police badge, hanging ornaments and items for children, such as Thomas the Train, a bucking bronco and a motorcycle.

And then there’s the special one his wife requested – the “United We Stand” wall hanging. “Carol is very patriotic,” he said.

He thought he might like to try to sell some of his work, but his wife, who works at Eastern Washington University, kept appropriating each finished project for the house. It wasn’t until he had made nine clocks for her that they began to take the new ones to craft fairs. Also, their daughter, Shelley Bauge, has them on display in her A Creative Touch hair and nail salon in Cheney, and customers there often purchase them.

A lot of hours go into each item, and Prentice figures he probably makes $1 an hour – or less – on what he sells. But that’s not why he spends eight hours a day, six days a week from the end of September and into the spring in his shop with his scroll saw. Summertime is for yard work.

When he was diagnosed with diabetes, it helped get him up and moving. When his carpel tunnel issues cause pain and his fingers cramp, he pushes through. “You don’t let that stuff bother you,” he said, “you just go back and keep working. This helps calm me. It’s good for my blood pressure. I’m a lot more patient. I really like it.”

Prentice said he has no idea how he came to have the ability to do this kind of work. He’s even designed some of his own patterns, but he didn’t like how they turned out. Someone must have, because his original-design projects have all sold.

He did a lot of woodworking in school, and his teachers let him make extra projects, such as a coffee table with inlaid wood. The desk in his Cheney home was made by his own hand out of solid black walnut – from that same friend’s tree – that is so heavy that three adults can’t lift it. He had to assemble it in sections on site.

The only projects he’s ever ruined, Prentice admits, were one or two large woodworking ones. “But then I broke down and got glasses,” he laughed.

He’s never ruined a scroll saw piece. “Well, not yet,” he said.

He’s not sure he has a favorite piece himself, but one near to his heart was the purple heart hardwood crucifix he crafted last year. It was for his 16-year-old grandson Andrew Prentice, who was killed in an accident. Prentice made it with love, and then, as a final gift, laid it on Andrew’s chest in his casket.