BUCYRUS — Andrew Rush is a sucker for Stars and Stripes. He’s a flag maker.
But the American flags Rush creates aren’t the 100-percent nylon variety attached to flag poles across the country. They’re custom flags crafted of maple, walnut and other hardwoods.
The 3-D flags that also seem to be moving in the breeze.
“The look of it, the end result, that’s what people love,” said Rush, the 34-year-old owner of Rush Woodworks in both Bucyrus and Lexington. “I just started making them and the word spread, then it was all I could do to keep up with the orders.”
That was two years ago.
Since then, Rush has produced nearly 2,000 wood-grained flags, which have been shipped to every state in the country except Hawaii and to U.S. military bases as far away as Spain and Germany. Even country singer Neal McCoy has one.
They’re made from more than 50 different combinations of wood, even exotic Padauk, all cut, planed and sanded into two-inch or three-inch-thick pieces, depending on the size. The canons and stripes are glued together, then run through a milling machine to create “the wave.”
“What I’m doing isn’t magical, but you can’t just make a flag,” Rush said. “To be correct, you have to be dimensionally correct.”
The flags are available in four sizes, but Rush said the most popular is a 9-1/4 by 17-1/2-inch American flag crafted of bright red Chakte Kok and maple with a blue stained star field. He also makes a Betsy Ross flag, a Canadian flag and one representing Texas, the Lone Star state.
Rush’s wife, Jessica, paints the five-pointed stars white, with help from a couple of part-time employees. But one of Rush’s original designs – the “quarter” flag – features 50 quarters instead of 50 stars, one representing each state. It’s the one McCoy has.
Rush, a Bucyrus native, has been dabbling in woodworking since he was a teenager. He learned from his father, Roger Rush, who runs Rush Tool & Pattern on Whetstone St. The shop is where rough lumber is transformed into works of art, where five precision ball cutters set the flags in motion.
Rush signs and dates his pieces, which are finished with a protective coat of semi-gloss, gloss or oil spray. They’re packed and shipped in custom boxes manufactured at Flick Packaging in Galion, with a turnaround time of about three to four weeks.
In his spare time, the father of three makes custom tables, furniture and jewelry boxes – anything out of wood – and works at his father’s shop.
“Woodworking isn’t work for me. It’s a dream job,” Rush said. “I just keep getting business, so it’s been good.”
And down the road? An Ohio flag is on the drawing board for Rush Woodworks and, eventually, a flag for all 50 states. Because this flag maker is proud to be an American and use his talents to “help other people celebrate their patriotism.”
