Several years ago, Kelly Mehler closed his much-beloved woodworking school in Berea, Ky., to tend to his health and family. A lot of us (former instructors and students) wondered if Kelly would ever open the school’s doors again. Or if it was gone for good. This week I received a piece of good news. Berea …
The Return of Kelly Mehler and the Rebirth of a School – Read More »
Monroe Robinson Monroe Robinson, author of “The Handcrafted Life of Dick Proenneke,” was recently interviewed by Charles Monroe-Kane, senior producer and interviewer of “To the Best of Our Knowledge.” The episode, “Forged by Hand,” which also includes interviews with coppersmith Sara Dahmen, and actor, author, humorist and woodworker Nick Offerman, is airing today on some …
Monroe Robinson Interview on ‘To the Best of Our Knowledge’ Today – Read More »
My next book, “Ingenious Mechanicks: Early Workbenches & Workholding,” is about one-third designed. As with all my books, it is wrestling with me like an alligator in a vat of Crisco. Suzanne “The Saucy Indexer” Ellison has turned up a number of new images of old workbenches recently that have reinforced and nuanced some of …
A comb-back chair I built that was finished using the techniques in this book. The following is excerpted from John Porritt’s “The Belligerent Finisher.” Porritt, who works from a small red barn in upstate New York, has been at his trade for many decades, and his eye for color and patina is outstanding. We’ve seen …
Krenov plays with a sailboat and one of his Airedale dogs in the Cook Inlet. Photo courtesy of the Krenov family. The following is excerpted from “James Krenov: Leave Fingerprints,” by Brendan Bernhardt Gaffney. After years of research and more than 150 interviews, Gaffney produced the first and definitive biography of Krenov, featuring historical documents, …
We have yet to replenish stock on “The Anarchist’s Workbench” and “The Anarchist’s Design Book” due to delays at one of our printing plants. Both books have been delayed by several weeks but should be back in inventory the week of Nov. 16, according to our press representative. The reason the books have been delayed …
A couple weeks ago, Mike Updegraff and I had a Mortise & Tenon booth at the Fine Woodworking Live event. During that weekend, attendees asked how long my Jonathan Fisher book project had been under way. Someone said they hadn’t heard much about it and so, when I recently started talking about it, it seemed …
Ray Deftereos, a self-described “hand tool evangelist from South Africa,” began learning about and working with hand tools only two years ago. This, in part, makes him an ideal person to host “Hand Tool Book Review,” a “podcast for woodworms.” When starting out, Ray says he found it difficult to find good books about working …
Several people have asked for drawings of the three-tiered Nicholson campaign chest I’m finishing up this month. The bad news: I don’t have detailed drawings. Good news: You don’t need them. The chest is built using the same techniques shown in “Campaign Furniture.” The only differences are the drawer graduations and the fact that there …
Dimensions for the Nicholson Campaign Chest – Read More »
I started this “gift guide” years ago after watching a woodworking TV personality’s “gift guide” for one of his sponsors. Clearly, he’d been given a list of worthless garbage products that were severely overstocked. I thought: What if some poor spouse actually took this clown’s advice? Our gift guide is – as always – unsponsored. …