On closing the first week

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This has been an amazing two weeks since my return already. The joints on the tool box are really tight and so too the frames holding the raised panel yesterday afternoon we had them all raised with the #4 smoother so we now have them all glued and fixed to the boxes with this level of quality everyone has gained the level of confidence they need to continue when they return home. My goal is to impart all that I have learned in fifty years anthreat way we are bridgebuilding from the present to the past, minute by minute, gaining not new but old ground.

Chris glued up his box with phenominally tight shoulder lines, perfect haunches to every corner all of the surfaces planed flush. Raising the panels turned out to be a blast dor everyone using this miethd and a hand plane most people see as a rubbish plane. All of the emerging craftsmen here now know their tools well, feel peace in their skill sets and are no longer intimidated by the processes that once held them back. They all of them like my sharpening methods and especially the non-micro-bevel convex bevel system because of its speed and sharpness.

I said this week somewhere that the Narex bevel edged chisels we have been using at the school are proving to be truly excellent in functionality and quality and I am glad that they are because we want aomething we can recommend to our students and others who want reliable, well-made tools at an affordable price. I am also glad the students are willing to go regularly to the sharpeing stations too. We tend not to use any mechanical grinding on our edge tools, primarily because it’s unnecessary, slow and too rigid. These students have really gained good grounding in how to sharpen on time, quickly and efficiently. that makes my task of teaching and training so much easier. They learn so many new techniques and methods at my benchwhen they have this and other fundamentals really mastered.

Thought you would like a picture of the guys standing by a tower of tool chests. Hard to do with their other projects but in a couple of days I will post pictures of this. This week we will have their coffee tables done and dusted too and we will be on with the rocking chairs. Last picture I hope will be them sitting on the front porch of the workshop in their rockers with the sun setting gently over the pond in front, but we are a way off from thatbyet so we will see.