Newsletters

This Woodworker Carving Perfect Spiral Shavings Is Oddly Satisfying

Tara Bellucci
Tara BellucciNews and Culture Director
Tara is Apartment Therapy's News & Culture Director. When not scrolling through Instagram double-tapping pet pics and astrology memes, you'll find her thrift shopping around Boston, kayaking on the Charles, and trying not to buy more plants.
Follow
updated Jul 17, 2020
comments
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
Post Image
See More Images
(Image credit: Paul Sellers/YouTube)

How’s your day going? Could you use a little break? Surely you could take 52 seconds to hit pause on life for a moment and give yourself a sense of calm. Good thing there’s this soothing video of someone creating perfect spiral shavings that’s exactly what we didn’t know we needed to see.

See More Images
(Image credit: Paul Sellers/YouTube)

UK based master woodworker Paul Sellers uploaded a video of himself creating wood shavings with a chisel, and because nature is beautiful and full of math, the shavings create Fibonacci—or golden—spirals.

If you need a geometry refresher, a golden spiral is a logarithmic spiral whose growth factor is φ, the golden ratio. So, a golden spiral gets wider (or further from its origin) by a factor of φ for every quarter turn it makes.

In a blog post shared last month, Sellers explains:

Though Fibonacci developed his numerical sequence to provide a formula that’s used throughout many mathematical considerations, and mathematicians may enjoy its reality in their work, it also occurs naturally in elements of nature too. The nautilus shell is an example and so too the natural numbering system appears in the arrangement of plant leaves, pinecones, pineapple cones, rose petal arrangements and so much more. The scroll in the violin range of instruments relies on the same system. Though technically not a Fibonacci sequence, I thought you would enjoy what we put together here where we combine the art of woodworking with the art of video craft.

But, if math stresses you out, just forget about it and enjoy how pretty it is.

If you’d like to create something similar before your very eyes, Sellers’ website offers free projects and technique videos for the wannabe woodworker. You can also take classes on site in Oxfordshire.

Check out the video below and watch on repeat whenever you need a little zen:

More satisfying videos

  • Watching These Paint Colors Being Mixed Is Totally Relaxing
  • This GIF of a Spool of Thread Getting Sliced is Strangely Beautiful
  • Watching This Cleaning Machine Transform Dirty Old Grout is So Satisfying

h/t Colossal

Filed in:
Entertainment & Fun