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Prairie Sofa and Love Seat, Part 2

It’s been a couple of months since Part 1, and there’s been a lot of progress. So much, that as of this writing, I’m almost done, but I’ll save that for Part 3. I left off in Part 1 with readying the design and acquiring the rough lumber. But since then, both of those things changed. Frame and panel style sides The design is now different. In the plans, and my original intent, I was going with the frame and panel style sides. That design depended on getting one important type of material for the panels: 1/2″ quarter sawn white oak plywood. I needed 1/2″ plywood, not 1/4″ (which was readily available) or 3/4″ (also readily available), because I wanted to have a 1/4…

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Prairie Sofa and Love Seat, Part 3

The end of my last post said “Part 3 coming soon”, but that was back in April, and the sofa and love seat were completed back in May/June. Since then, I’ve been waiting to get some nice photography of the pieces before finishing the series. Because they were so large, and I’d already put them into my house, it was hard for me to do the photography well. Luckily, a friend of mine is a great photographer, and he came over with fancy lights, cameras, and other equipment, and he went at it for an an afternoon taking some excellent shots. Once he had the shots, it then took a while for him to edit and color correct them, etc. …

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Boiling Stones

I’ve been enjoying my new books. Lost Art Press recently released the two book set “The Woodworker: The Charles H. Hayward Years”, a release that I’ve been eagerly awaiting ever since it was announced month (years?) ago. It’s an absolutely fantastic curated collection of woodworker and author Hayward’s articles from his years as editor of the English The Woodworker magazine from 1939 to 1967. If ever “Lost Art Press” lived up to its its name (by, you know, pressing lost art), its here. Hayward’s career spanned the transition from hand work to the modern power tool age, a period when so much fundamental woodworking knowledge went from being common to almost forgotten. At 888 pages, it is a massive collection. But Lost…

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Littleton Common Makers Now Open

Matt Filipski, my first student at Littleton Common Makers, tests out a chisel he’s learning to sharpen by hand on oilstones.I’m very excited to announce that Littleton Common Makers is now open! This is the makerspace I first wrote about in this blog post.The purpose of a makerspace is to provide a workspace and community for people who like to make things, but don’t have space or equipment of their own to do it. This covers the whole range of making, from low-tech to high-tech, for hobbyists and professionals.One of the real values in a makerspace is that it provides access to a number of disciplines and facilitates cross-pollination across them. This includes electronics, …

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Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event At Goosebay Sawmill And Lumber 2016

These burls greet you when pulling up to the sales building at Goosebay Sawmill and Lumber.I’m behind on getting this post out. Life has gotten pretty busy lately. I started a new job in December that gets me home at nearly 8:00 every night. But I’m enjoying it so much I’m scurrying out the door every morning at 6:30 to catch the early train so I can get back to work.That doesn’t leave a lot of time for woodworking or other things during the week. At least I can get up to an hour of writing or editing or coding done on the train. Unless that clubbed-over-the-head feeling catches up with me and I have to zone …

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Meet Ken Aucremanne And VetWoodworks

Ken Aucremanne at North Bennet St. School.Tuesday I had lunch with Ken Aucremanne (pronoununced “ockerman”). Ken is a 6-year US Navy veteran from West Virginia who’s in the process of starting VetWoodworks, a charitable non-profit organization to promote woodworking for veterans.Like me, he’s concerned to see veterans suffering from unemployment, depression, substance abuse, homelessness, and worse. We both see woodworking as a way to provide veterans with vocational training, a hobby, or just a few hours of relaxation.Sometimes it’s nothing more than what I call therapy shavings. No need to build anything, just enjoy the pure satisfaction of turning a piece of wood into a pile of shavings.Part of his effort involves traveling the country …

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Veteran Woodworks At Nashua Spring 2016

Ken Aucremanne at the Veteran Woodworks booth.This past Friday and Saturday, Ken Aucremanne and I setup a Veteran Woodworks booth at the Martin J. Donnelly Auctions “Live Free or Die Tool Auction” in Nashua, NH. This is a bi-annual event featuring some of the best antique tool sales in New England.In addition to the 2-day formal auction inside, there are always extensive parking lot sales out back, this time starting 2 days before.You know how occasionally at flea markets you find that one good tool guy? Imagine an entire hotel parking lot like that. Yeah, start drooling. Fully half of my personal and student tools come from here.Ken had called and spoken to Kathy Donnelly to …

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Spring 2016 Session Intro To Hand Tools

Learn how to use these and other hand tools.The Spring 2016 session of my online video course Intro To Hand Tools starts May 11 at Popular Woodworking University, the online education component of Popular Woodworking Magazine.The course consists of 12 hours of instruction for $59.99. If you’d like to learn how to do everything with hand tools or just add some hand skills to your power tool woodworking, whether you’re a new or experienced woodworker, this is for you.Why do everything with hand tools when there are perfectly good power tools available? The practical reason is lack of access to power tools or lack of space for them.A small hand tool workshop is an excellent option for anyone with …

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