Craft Films

The Chairmaker and the Boys, , provided by the National Film Board of Canada Since my last post I found this fictional video from 1959 of a couple boys playing at Ernest Hart's mill and chair shop. The shop seems to have been cleaned out somewhat for the film,...

This well shot, if rather hokey video shows a post-and-rung chairmaker at work in his water powered shop. It looks like he also cards wool, weaves baskets, does some wagon wheel work, smiths... His lathe looks to be a pattermaker's lathe similar to mine, with a...

Starting in  the the linden forests of Russia, this video follows the making of nesting dolls from tree to paint.  From what I could find on the internet this is still a localized craft industry in Russia,  like so many trades were in England and...

If I was a farmer I would grow chairs.  A couple years ago, Curtis Buchanan sent me photos of chairs by the company Full Grown.  I think they are brilliant: Apparently it takes seven years to grow a chair, exponentially less than it takes to grow the trees I...

I had forgotten about this video till one of my students mentioned a similar idea in my class last week. This is a pretty cool greenwood cottage industry and an amusing video:

In June, Curtis became a grandfather. Since I've known him, he has wanted to build a version of one of the cradles in Santore's book. He finally got the chance and what a beauty it is: Here's a lovely video interview of Curtis Buchanan describing his conscious...

This video has nothing to do with woodworking and it is in German, yet it is one of the most memorable craft videos I have ever watched. Casting giant church bells. It starts with hand building 8' tall molds made of brick and layers of mortar, fiber and metal. ...