I’ve been doing a lot of teaching lately. That doesn’t help my work output in the shop much, but I have really enjoyed meeting, spending time, and passing along what I know to a great bunch of people. Here are a few of them:
Matthew came to learn plane-making. Here he is checking the function of his just-put-together persimmon plane on some curly maple, with great results!
Michael came down from New Jersey, stayed at the fabulous Mast Farm Inn with his wife and enjoyed a couple of days of plane-making too.
Charlie came on up from Charleston, SC and spent a week in the shop. First he made a coopering plane. Then, he put it to use and got down to building a coopered door out of some spalted anigre he brought along. Finally, he put together a cherry cabinet (dry fit) for what will become a very sweet wall-mounted jewelry cabinet:
Charlie with his coopered cabinet.
Michael made the journey from Maine. A great admirer of James Krenov’s work, he had previously built a beautiful little Krenov inspired curved door (laminated) wall cabinet made of pearwood for which he still needed to put together the two curved front drawers, but required a bit of assistance. We spent the week learning about the use of templates to help pull off this sort of challenging half-blind dovetailing. The drawer fronts were not only curved but the sides were of different lengths, each drawer making up only half the arc of the cabinet front:
I spent the past two days with Aaron, a senior at Appalachian State University from right here in Boone, NC. He is actively exploring what an education and career in fine woodworking might look like, and I was honored to be his first stop along the way. Plane-making is one of the best introductions I know of to fine woodworking and Aaron got off to a great start with it. A trip down memory lane for me. It was about 29 years ago that I was in the same boat — just finished an undergraduate degree, but not feeling too passionate about academics or my possible career path. By chance I learned of Jim Krenov’s Fine Woodworking Program at the College of the Redwoods in Fort Bragg, CA. After visiting there, I knew without a doubt the direction I wished to head in…still traveling that path.
Until next time,
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