This month in Wood News we featured Randy Cordle’s ‘very minimalist’ woodworking shop. Randy says that he prefers working with tool that can be found in the average home shop, and he gets quite a lot done in his shop with a perfectly reasonable inventory of woodworking tools! Take a look at the pictures of his shop below, or click to learn more about Randy Cordle’s shop.
To read about even more shops, click to check out our Shops Gallery.
If you would like to submit your shop, just SEND US PHOTOS of your woodworking shop along with captions and a brief history and description of your woodworking. (Email photos at 800 x 600 resolution.) Receive a $50 store credit redeemable towards merchandise if we show your shop in a future issue.
The Tormek T-8 water cooled sharpener will let you sharpen practically everything in your shop and home. The T-8 uses a unique wet grinding stone that lets you restore your woodworking tool’s edges quickly and precisely, without any risk of destroying the temper of the steel and then uses a leather wheel strop for honing them to a razor sharp edge.
Michael Morton gives an overview of the features of the T-8 sharpening system and shows how the sharpening machine is used to sharpen a chisel.
We had a fantastic time, yet again, at this year’s Lie-Nielsen Open House. The toolmakers are always so inspiring – we loved walking around in the tent and the workrooms inside to meet and chat with some of our artisan toolmakers such as Peter Galbert, Matt Bickford, Scott Meek, Chris Keuhn of Sterling Toolworks, and many more!
On both Friday and Saturday the offerings included 3 daily Tool Talks where you could delve a bit deeper into the workings of some of the tools. Tours of the factory left the check-in area every half hour and were led by the always excellent Lie-Nielsen show staff. We got a great tour led by the originator of our Women in Woodworking column, Anne Briggs.
Lie-Nielsen Show Staffer, Anne Briggs, discusses the Lie-Nielsen Hand Saws on the factory tour
As the open house portion of the weekend drew to a close on Saturday afternoon, the steamers and bonfires started up for the great Lobster Bake, and it did not disappoint. The lines were long but the lobster was worth the wait. After we ate our fill, we sat back and learned the history of woodworking tool commerce and how Tom Lie-Nielsen got his start from keynote speaker Garry Chinn, who was Tom’s first and last boss at Garrett Wade, and who also had a connection to Highland Woodworking in the early days. The evening concluded with attendees gathered around the bonfire to warm up on an uncharacteristically chilly Maine July evening, before saying goodbye. We’re already looking forward to next year’s Open House!
We are very excited to be making our way up the coast to Warren, ME for the annual Lie-Nielsen Summer Open House. This one is a special one, celebrating 35 years of exquisite tool making.
We will be taking a look behind the scenes at the factory and talking to many great tool artisans who will be joining us in mid-coast Maine for the weekend, including Peter Follansbee, Chris Becksvoort, Peter Galbert, Chris Kuehn of Sterling Toolworks, Jeff Hamilton of Hamilton Woodworks, Josh Klein of Mortise and Tenon Magazine, and many more!
Take a look at the video below from last year’s open house to get a sense of what the event is like. And if you are free this weekend and nearby, come on out – we would love to see you!
We were very saddened to hear of the death of Master Woodworker Michael Gilmartin in May of this year.
Michael was a long time customer and an acclaimed woodworker who lived and worked for decades in Atlanta. He specialized in sculpted furniture, and was known for his unique and iconic plywood sculpted chair, which became a style known as the Gilmartin chair.
We featured Michael in our Moment with a Master segment of an episode of The Highland Woodworker in early 2015, and enjoyed the opportunity to go into his shop and learn more about his techniques of stacking and finding cadence in the beautiful plywood furniture he created.
We will miss Michael’s visits to the store, and the woodworking world will miss a Master Woodworker, who inspired many in his time and will continue to do so.
This weekend, Atlanta is hosting a bunch of woodworkers in town for The Woodworking Show. Highland Woodworking is sharing a booth with SawStop, so if you’re at the show, be sure to stop by and say hello!
A few of the show-going woodworkers are also taking advantage of our store’s nearby location and checking it out for the 1st time (or 30th). We got a great write-up from Jay Bates of Jay’s Custom Creations who visited the store yesterday and got a behind-the-scenes tour from store owner, Chris Bagby. If you haven’t been to the store yet, Jay got some great photos, so be sure to check them out in the link below.
