It was a wood-working flair, along with the help of family and friends, that has launched Dan Mazel into a new business venture — Stonefly Studio. With inspiration from his son, Isaac, Mazel now crafts wooden fly boxes with laser-engraved designs on the front and back.
Mazel got into the business in a roundabout way. After attending a fly-fishing school at the Dome Mountain Ranch in the Paradise Valley in Montana, Isaac received the gift of a wooden fly box. When Isaac lost his box, Mazel decided to build a replacement.
At first, Mazel did all of the router work out of his garage, shaping the wood and drilling holes for hinges, and magnets that act as latches. To decorate the outside of the box, Isaac created a program to transfer computer designs to a laser engraver.
Although he can transfer just about any type of artwork to the wooden boxes to customize them for customers, Mazel’s most popular designs have been the squiggly details of rivers, shown as they appear on maps. The boxes also are decorated with the detail of a fly, like a mayfly or stonefly, above the map and can be personalized with the owner’s name. On the back, Mazel has etched artwork such as a jumping trout.
He offers four types of wood to choose from — maple, walnut and beech cost $80 with the mahogany box costing $85.
For more information, visit www.stoneflystudio.com/
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