WIA 2015: Where Not to Buy Studley Calipers

When we pulled up to the Festhalle Barn the morning of the Handworks show, we were impressed to see a long line of people wrapped around the barn, along the fence and into the street.

As we made our way to our booth, we realized this line started at our booth. I put down my bag and the first guy in line pounced on me.

“I’m here for the calipers,” he said.

Calipers?

“The Studley calipers, the limited edition ones. You only have 50,” he replied.

“Dude, that was two years ago,” I said. “We don’t have any calipers.”

He insisted that we did, and that I had been blogging about it leading up to the show. He got a little cranky and I thought he might take a swing at me. The next guy in line had the same story. I looked and John and mouthed “WTF?”

We still don’t know what happened and why 100 people thought we were selling calipers. So if you are coming to Woodworking in America, read this next sentence: We don’t have any H.O. Studley calipers. We have the book and DVD on Studley, but not the calipers.

(If you want a nice pair modeled after Studley’s, you can buy them from Lee Valley Tools here.)

We do have some other cool stuff at Woodworking in America. A beautiful letterpress poster for $20 that was a joint project between Steam Whistle Letter Press and us. We’re bringing about 470. We sent 25 to Classic Hand Tools in England, which they will offer over there. If we have any posters left over (and we should) we’ll find a way to put them up in our online store.

We also have our crazy Bandito shirt – a skeleton holding two dovetail saws – that was designed by Shelby Kelley. Will these sell? We don’t care. We’ll just wear them all if we have to. The shirts are in an olive green with black ink. Also $20.

Book Signing for ‘Virtuoso’

If you’d like to get your copy of “Virtuoso: The Tool Cabinet and Workbench of H.O. Studley” signed, stop by the Lost Art Press booth at 2 p.m. Saturday. Author Don Williams and photographer Narayan Nayar will be there to sign your books.

Our booth is at the back of the Marketplace, a small corner next to Stumpy Nubs’ triple-wide booth.

Stop by to say hello to me, John or Brian Clites, our new forum moderator.

— Christopher Schwarz