Crashing the Party

Last week when Christopher Schwarz was here, I only got to attend his bowsaw class.  It was fantastic.  There was a couple of extra spaces in his class for the Roorkhee chair, but unfortunately I could not get out of work.

The good news was, I had a couple of mornings during that class where I could sneak away.  I totally crashed the class, and snapped a couple photos for the couple of hours I was there.

Chris started the class with a presentation on Roorkhee chairs.  Many of us had already sat through the presentation at the beer garden the night before.

A word about marking parts.

You can totally tell who has seen this presentation on sharpening before.

Chris started out one day with a primer on sharpening.  This photo is funny because there are several people in this class that have been in Chris' previous classes at Dictum.  Everyone in the back who looks like they aren't paying attention have heard this class before.  Don't misunderstand, it is more like they are making room for those new guys who haven't seen it yet.

I really wish I would have been able to take this class, the project looks like a lot of fun, and I have zero experience with leather.  I think I will make one of these at some point, though.  If I get stuck, I know a couple people that were in the class that can show me what to do.

One other amusing anecdote from the class, one day Martin, a student that was also in the bowsaw class with me, was setting his tools up when he arrived.  I started to make fun of him a little bit when he was carrying his tool kit around in a blue IKEA bag.

My mouth dropped when he showed me what he was carrying in there:

Chris wrote about these planes on his Lost Art Press blog.  I didn't get a chance to use them much, but I could hardly quit gawking at them.  These are some seriously heavy planes.  And pretty.

Martin's tool porn wasn't only relegated to planes.  He also had a beautiful Two Lawyers saw.  It turns out this saw is on their homepage, as their header.  Lucky thing, because I forgot to take a picture.  It is spalted Correlian birch, with 17 tpi.  It is just as stunning, if not moreso, in person.

It turns out that Martin is WoodWurm, and has his own webpage where you can see much of his tool porn. 

I think this is one of the great things about taking woodworking classes, you never know who you are going to meet.  A few of the woodworkers I have been to classes with over the last couple years have wood blogs.  Check them out:

Mulesaw
The Plane Doctor
Wood & Glue

I probably missed a couple, so feel free to post links in the comments.