Here is a picture of my first project from my woodworking shop. Its a paddle made from an exotic wood known as PurpleHeart and it really is purple. It started from a stock piece obtained from a local woodworking store and was about 24 inches long, 4 inches wide and 3/4 inch thick. I patterned the paddle from another one we already had. I sanded the thickness down to 1/2 inch at the handle and it tapers down to about 3/8 inch at the end of the blade. This took quite a bit of time and I now own a planer! I used about six coats of a clear finish, sanding between each coat (and actually wet sanded with 600 grit using the finish on the fifth coat).