Ripple molding is a hand-scraped ornamental wood — the rhythmic waves you see along the edge of a 17th-century Flemish or Dutch frame. Every stick is drawn under a shaped knife, a technique perfected in the workshops of Amsterdam and Antwerp and nearly lost in the 20th century.

I make my own in maple, cherry, and walnut. Each batch is slightly different — as the scraper needs resharpening, tiny changes cause drift in the knifes' shape exactly as it did four centuries ago. That variation we embrace.