Jeff Owens

Wood Worker

There has been a saw mill in Panguitch for a long time, and the pieces of lumber that were too small for the mill to keep became the raw materials for Jeff to indulge a penchant for building things out of wood.  Miniature cabins were his first projects, completed behind his house in the spare time of his pre-teen years.  His enjoyment of the possibilities of wood, and of the pleasures of using both modern and traditional tools, grew as he received instruction in fine woodworking in high school.  While majoring in mathematics at Southern Utah State College in Cedar City, he also received a certificate in Furniture and Cabinet Design from their Industrial Arts Department.

When newly married, while working a farm and teaching math in his old high school, Jeff started making furniture – chairs, jewelry boxes, cedar chests, and the like.  The hobby, and his wood shop, grew after he was recruited to work in the software industry in Utah County.  After 19 years of working with silica and electrons, doing database retrievals of misplaced terabyte-sized files for large corporations, he left the high-tech computer world to join with his old neighbor, Marshall Haglund, to form Utah Wood & Iron™, LLC.

Jeff brings an interesting outlook and background to fine carpentry.  He loves the classic methods and designs of the past, and enjoys building replicas of old pieces, or variations on the furniture from the turn-of-the-20th-century Craftsman style of Greene & Greene.  Joinery – the fitting together of different pieces or sections of furniture – is one of Jeff’s favorite subjects.  A well-joined chair leg or chest corner is a marvel of good engineering as well as a joy to feel and behold.  It has both form and function, both art and science.   While some joinery has been mechanized, there is still a call for the master craftsman to put his chisel and mallet to work in creating artful, heirloom furniture that can survive generations of use and bring generations of appreciation.

In addition to traditional woodworking, Jeff has some space-age interests, too.  He engineered some of his own tools from metal he smelted in his back yard, has machined Rockets (complete with convergent-divergent nozzles) on his hand-built lathe, and cooked solid rocket propellant in his wife’s kitchen to power his finned creations.  Jeff’s abilities go above and beyond the average – literally!

Growing up on a farm, Jeff developed the capacity for problem-solving that is a necessity when you have few materials and are far from any help.  He has built or modified much of the equipment he works with in his shop, which has resulted in improvements in efficiency as well in the capacity to produce beautiful pieces of furniture.  He can help you solve problems of design or usage as you seek to furnish your home with items of inspiring beauty, subtle simplicity and lasting quality.