I’ve been gone for what seems like forever. In the beginning of June, my wife and I went on vacation for a week with the ultimate goal of Eric Cannizzaro’s shop in Vermont. There I taught a green woodworking class with Eric for a week.
It’s a pretty idyllic spot. We made spoons and fan birds, brooms and pitch forks. The pitch forks were my favorite, and a lot of the student’s favorite too. I had new information from Peter Follansbee about setting the bends, which was a lot of fun:
From Eric’s, I visited George Sawyer and his sister Annie:
Annie was around when I worked with their father Dave fifteen or twenty years ago, but George was off in school or somewhere so I’m just now getting to know him. Nice guy. Then I went to Old Sturbridge Village for my third viewing of the Samuel Wing collection to answer a few leftover questions for my book. The most interesting thing I found was these three unused spindles that have funny convex facets on them. Could have been done with a convex spokeshave, but I’ve never seen a wooden-bodied version of that tool. Maybe it was done with a hollow pane? I’ll have to try it:
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From there I went to eastern Mass to spend a week with Peter Follansbee:
We built a “Samuel Wing” chair together and talked about old woodworkers we knew:
And I found four boxes of additional Samuel Wing Documents at the Sandwich Historical Society and Glass Museum:
Then I went to the Jersey shore and looked at a mid-19th century collection of chairmaking tools in the storage facilityof the Monmouth County Historical Association, including this rare chairmaker’s low bench:
And a box of unused spoon bits:
From there I went home. It’s really nice to sleep in my own bed again.
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P.S. I have decided to offer my first-ever sale of online classes. From now through Sunday, all the classes I did with Curtis Buchanan are 50% off.
Velda’s Chair: We make a rocker and and an arm chair in this ten-part series. Nearly 20 hours of content. $82.50 through July 7th.
Democratic Chair: Seven episodes on making Curtis’s Democratic side chair. $50.00 through July 7th
Spoon Carving: We make one of Curtis’s steam-bent spoons in this 2-hour video. $10 through July 7th
What about a scratch stock? For making the convex facets on the spindles, I mean.
That could have been used, but the surface looked shaved rather than scraped.
Is the Samuel Wing collection that little museum of hand tools just across from the blacksmith? If so, cool. I’ve seen it twice and always wanted to know more about the individual, etc.
The Wing collection is not usually on display; it is currently located in their storage facility.