The roots of Ring + Grove go back to log-home building. For years, the family that runs the business constructed log homes in rural Ontario, working with large timbers of oak, pine, and cedar. They knew wood the way most people know metal -- through years of cutting, sanding, and finishing.
The transition to rings happened almost by accident. One day, leftover wood veneers from a log-home project were sitting in the workshop. Someone cut a strip, rolled it into a ring shape, and steamed it into form. It was simple, durable, and beautiful. Another ring followed. Then ten. Then fifty.
Within a few years, the workshop had evolved from log-home construction to focused ring-making. They invested in steaming equipment, custom molds, and finishing tools. But they kept the same approach: no lathes, no CNC machines, no factory lines. Every ring was still shaped by hand, using the same principles that had guided log-building for decades.
Today, the Bobcaygeon workshop produces over 15,000 rings and supplies them worldwide. The materials have expanded -- from basic oak and pine to Santos Rosewood, grey-dyed birdseye maple, bog oak, mammoth tusk, and exotic hardwoods. But the process is the same: steam, layer, form, sand, finish.
The transition from log homes to rings was not a pivot. It was a natural refinement. The skills required to build a log home -- understanding grain, respecting wood's natural behaviour, finishing surfaces by hand -- are the same skills required to make a ring that lasts a lifetime. Only the scale changed.