Hello all.

As it happens, I've been haunting the Pond (both sides) for over two years, rarely adding anything but absorbing as much as possible. I've met some of you on trips, etc., and the fact is that I don't know another community like this one -- the willingness to share information and help one another provides a gratifying counterpoint to the daily political morass of D.C....

Like so many others, I was always shaping a piece of wood, even as a child. Most of the scars on my hands are from blades, and I learned the "don't cut toward another part of your body rule" the hard way. Well, maybe "learned" is a bit optimistic, but I'm better than I used to be.

I grew up in Corvallis, OR, the outskirts of Tucson, AZ, and on Lake Murray in SC. Each offered an astonishing array of woods to see, touch, and smell. I fell in love with apple, douglas fir, mesquite, desert ironwood, eastern red cedar, birch, and so many others. Those are with me to this day, and I've added a few that weren't options back then -- hard and soft maple, cherry, walnut, oak, mahogany, and sycamore.

The fact is, however, that I was positively lousy in the shop class I took, and I wasn't much better outside of it. I made some money in high school carving hiking staffs, but joinery was beyond my understanding. In graduate school I made numerous kitchen implements (spoons, bowls, etc.), but all of my efforts were from wood subtraction instead of adding two or more pieces together.

After my wife and I married, she went back for her Ph.D., and we went down to one income. At the time, I was working in government. For those of you around D.C., I was a regulatory analyst for OMB. For those of you who couldn't care less what happens in D.C., this means that I was one of the regulatory specialists for the career branch of the White House. You can blame me for any regulations that have come out since 1998 in radiation, pesticides, nuclear energy, conventional energy, and (partially) education policy.

After a year of struggling to pay rent, I gave up and took a job as a lobbyist. We bought a house, and I finally got a shop! It was then that I received the best piece of advice ever from those on the Pond -- buy what you need, and save until you can afford the quality that you want. Krenov's books provided the next great hint -- buy good wood, wood that inspires you. Buy all that you can afford, and then buy a little bit more. I've been balancing those two pieces of advice ever since!

Thanks to all of the Ponders who were so generous with their time, I've managed to make a few simple, but reasonably well-executed, jewelry boxes, and I have orders for three more. I still make kitchen bits and pieces (I particularly like spoons in birdseye maple), but I've expanded my goals to include display cabinets within the year. We'll see...

My shop is cluttered, simple, and woefully under-utilized, but I spend as much time there as possible. It is divided into two rooms -- one for power tools and one for hand tools. The power tools I use most often are a Laguna 18" bandsaw, a Jet Drill Press, a miter saw, and an old (really, really old) Craftsman router that was a gift from my father-in-law.

The router "table" looks a little silly, but it does the job. The house came with one of those old rolling dishwashers with lift-up wooden tops. My wife begged me to throw it away, but I couldn't afford a router lift, and I thought that this would help me to access the router when changing bits. I was only partially right, but it does help to keep the router setup out of the way...

The second room is where I spend the majority of my time. It has a small hobby bench (I definitely need to build a suitable one soon), a larger oak table where I do most of my handtool work (it also functions as my tool storage location), and a drafting table where I do design work.

The handtools that I use most:

And, as I cut all dovetails by hand, the chisels are key.

I use two sets regularly: a set of Barr chisels (1/8, 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, 5/8, 3/4, and 1), and a set of Tasai dovetail chisels (3mm, 4.5, 6, 7.5, 9, 12). As you can see, I didn't exactly gasp the concept of how to handle a japanese hammer the first time around!

The room also houses my wood on one of those black metal/wire storage racks that Home Depot sells. The most visible pieces are QS sycamore, flame birch, curly maple, quilted maply, curly holly, QS white oak, and QS red oak. Small quantities are sufficient -- my jewelry box designs rarely require more than a single board of the base wood.

That's about it for the tour. The last photo I included because it's the one I keep on my desk. An older and wiser analyst gave me some great advice when I took over the hiring for the division – never interview a member of the opposite sex without a picture of your husband/wife close at hand, and be sure to mention him/her in the first 90 seconds! It vastly reduces the opportunities for misunderstanding...

She is the light of my life.

Thanks again for all of your help and encouragement, and, as so many justifiably say, work safely.

Erik Godwin College Park, Maryland.

Originally posted 16 January 2003

wb 16-January 2003