I Need a Secretary!

I am back from the long weekend. Nope I haven't been on holiday (as my Canadian wife would say it). My family took the trek down with me to the Lie-Nielsen hand tool event in Charleston. I had a nice experience. The kids had fun, I think. The weather was rainy at times but we still managed a very large crowd especially on Saturday.

I wanted to share a few photos of those that were there at the event. I don't do Facebook so I guess this is my Facebook type post for the blog. I will get back to the real stuff soon enough when I get a chance to breath.

On that note as many of you seem to have noticed Chris Schwarz played a trick on me and posted my moulding planes up on his blog. He probably gets a kick out of slamming small fries web pages like mine. No, no, I am just joking but needless to say I am a bit behind on answering emails so I felt the need to let everyone know, that is waiting on me, that I will get to you but it may take a while. Also I started feeling bad for sending such short emails to respond to some. That always seems abrupt or rude to me. Anyways don't shy away from sending me your inquiries but now you know if my reply is slow.

...on to the poor photos. This first one is the twenty or so that attended the special tour of the Nathaniel Russell house built in 1808 with a view to appreciating its historic furniture. We got to pull out drawers and peek in places that you would never be allowed to otherwise. It was awesome to see drawer bottoms that were probably 24" deep and from one piece of wood!

There were some pretty unique stairs that were worth a photo. Those stair treads are pine...so dark. :)

View from the bottom

From the top

Then on to the venue a the American College of the Building Arts. We where on the second floor of the old jail. I wish I had taken a picture of the outside. I missed all the action going on during the day too. Plenty of iron work, timber framing and the like. I did get to pick up an antique moving fillister thanks to a customer bringing it to my attention. Thanks Lin! Here he is working the end of this board  with a fore plane before putting the raised panel plane to it.

It was nice to see the kids get involved. I had a whole family with, I think it was four of five boys, give the jack plane a go. It was fun. Mom gave it a whirl, too. Stuff like that makes my day. 

I didn't get a shot of them but I did get a shot of a father and son working the heck out of this board.

Finally the others... It was fun working with a crew like this. I felt a little out of place at first but that didn't last for long. Everyone welcomed me like I was a part of the gang even though it was only my first or second time to meet most of them. (I don't get around much)

Mary May, Chris Schwarz

Roger , Tom Lie-Nielsen , Deneb, and other enthusiastic woodworkers 

This had to be my favorite shot of the weekend. My wife took it while I was demonstrating something and showed it to me later. I don't know why, but I am a bit reluctant to post this but it was just too cute. These are my two girls getting a lesson on the names of hand tools from the inside cover of the book Grandpa's Workshop.

I will be following up with a post on how to purchase a plane or planes and it will include my current price list. Thanks for the positive response everyone.