Students from my most recent Chairmaker’s Toolbox class, October 2025. I like to foreground the “toolbox” part of the name 🙂
Among the woodworking charities Chris and I support, and to which we donate our time and teaching to every year, is The Chairmaker’s Toolbox (CMT). This organization, founded by Aspen Golann, works to remove barriers to learning by championing woodworking education for those who have been underserved in traditional woodworking shops – particularly in the disappearance of woodworking education in our schools.
Right now is the annual CMT fund drive. Your tax deductible monthly gift could help to sponsor scholarships for new makers and aspiring instructors, support meal and travel stipends for class assistants, covert postage and packing for donated tools and more! (And you’ll get a cool limited-edition sheet of stickers featuring chairs made in in 2025 classes.) Any amount helps! Or make a one-time donation by November 14 and get a nifty tote bag printed with a logo designed by Tahm Lytle.
Chris is back from Australia, and already prepping for an upcoming class.
Comments are now closed (but Chris will be in the blog back end later to answer the chair questions and any I missed…either on purpose or by mistake.)
Got a woodworking question or a question about what’s cooking at Lost Art Press? It’s your lucky day –it’s time for Open Wire!
You have until 5 p.m. Eastern to pose your question in the comments section below, and we’ll respond – hopefully with a informed and useful answer…but no promises on that front. (And it’s possible your fellow readers will have answers, too – and perhaps you’ll have an answer for someone else!).
You’ll hear mostly from me during the day; Chris will chime in to answer the myriad chair questions, and comment on the tensile strength of wombat poop, after his class ends.
– Fitz
p.s. The final Open Wire date for 2025 is December 13.
Don’t dally! We’re offering free shipping on EVERYTHING only through the end of October. Want a set of five Lost Art Press shop pencils? Only $13 for those and they ship free. So does a $25 jar of Soft Wax 2.0. And a $20 signed copy of “Sharpen This.” And a $24 Lost Art Press ball cap. In other words, no matter how little (or how much) you purchase, we’ll ship it to you, free. But only through the end of this month.
Nick Offerman learned as a child to work with his hands, to respect tools and to fix things in his hometown of Minooka, Illinois. “Sometimes, they’d let me nail a shingle,” he joked during his book reading last Saturday at the Berry Center. (Or maybe he wasn’t joking – but I suspect he was allowed to do more than just swing a hammer.)
In his latest book, “Little Woodchucks,” written with former Offerman Woodshop manager Lee Buchanan, he expounds on the ethos of make, don’t buy, and shows how entertaining it is to get in the shop and build toys that can then be used to irritate family members (a “slapstick” and wood whistle, for example). Or a wooden kite than you can then go fly. Or a meat locker in which to share sausages, cheese and/or cauliflower with neighbors (also useful as a Little Free Library).
“Little Woodchucks” helps parents set up a safe and kid-friendly shop, then presents 12 projects in increasing order of difficulty to help build skills as kids (and their adult helpers) make these fun creations.
As befits a book ostensibly for children, “Little Woodchucks” is filled with colorful images and easy-to-follow instructions. At the start of each project is an image of the tools and supplies needed for each – along with a joke or two that will delight kids and adults alike. That humor pervades the text as well, with Offerman’s throughline of wry anti-capitalism in support of “build, don’t buy,” and sustainability. As our copy editor, Kara Gebhart Uhl, noted, the book speaks to children, but it doesn’t talk down to them, making it enjoyable for the whole family.
And that family connection, that community fun, is among the overriding lessons of “Little Woodchucks.” Offerman writes in his introduction:
It’s like making a pie with your parents – that pie is going to be better and fresher than anything you could ever get at one of those chain restaurants. You and your folks are going to know every ingredient that went into that pie. If you’re lucky, you might know the chicken that laid the eggs and the other chickens that produced the butter, and if you do, I’d very much like to meet your dairy chickens. You might know the farmer who grew the grain that got turned into the flour. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? Maybe you know another Woodchuck friend who grows the blueberries. That sounds like a wonderful community to me.
Sounds pretty good to me, too.
If you have kids in your life who could benefit from making sawdust and fun instead of staring at a screen, this book is for you. If you’re an adult who like to giggle, this book is for you. And if both apply, well, rush out now and pick up a copy.
“Little Woodchucks” by Nick Offerman with Lee Buchanan (Dutton), is available in bookstores now – likely including your local, independent bookstore.
Kelly Mehler (left) helping student Jim Ferrell during a class at his woodworking school. It’s no wonder that most of the pictures I can find of Kelly in our archive are of him helping others.
It is with grief that I report Kelly Mehler died early Sunday morning, Oct. 5, 2025. As you might know, he’d been fighting cancer for some time, but I heard from him recently when he told me he was feeling great and doing well, and working on a tool chest in his shop. So this was shocking news.
Many people knew Kelly through his eponymous school in Berea, Ky., and through his bestselling “The Table Saw Book,” magazine articles and woodworking classes and conferences.
Kelly was a great friend to Chris and me, and I think to just about everyone else who ever met him. Kelly was one of my earliest teachers, and later championed me when I started teaching. He was one of the first people to ask Chris to teach, years before (and Chris will have more to say later).
Kelly is one of the most generous and funny men I’ve ever had the honor of knowing; I’m so glad I was able to call him my friend, and so very sad that he is gone.
At the request of his family, we’re posting Kelly’s memorial service information below. All are welcome.
