Our machinist has been backed up on work for a while, so we’re delighted he found time to get done for us a run of Brass Bevel Monkeys and 1:4 Dovetail Templates. Get ’em while they’re (metaphorically) hot!
– Fitz
p.s. The combo 1:6/1:8 Dovetail Template is in the tumbling hopper, and scrapers are currently in production – so both of those should also be back in stock soon. You can sign up at their links to be notified when they are.
My name is Lewis Laskin, and I’m excited to announce a Jimmy Possum chair class in my hometown of Annapolis, Maryland. The class is from June 22 to June 26, 2026, and registration opens February 20 at https://marylandhall.org/studioarts-ws.
Background
Three years ago, I wandered into the Jimmy Possum exhibit at Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery in Launceston, Tasmania, and I was captivated. Shortly thereafter, I wrote about the chairs and my experience in Tassie (“Tasmania”), which you can read here.
Building my first two JP chairs scratched the itch, but it didn’t cure it. So I’ve resolved to make JP chairs, too. Some 150 years after the first Jimmy Possum chair was built in Tasmania, students will learn to make their own, unique JPs in Annapolis – about as far away from Tassie as physically possible!
Curriculum
JP chairs are easily identifiable by their unique legs, which pass through the seat and into the arms. Not only are they surprisingly comfortable, but their folk origins allow for broad design flexibility. Students will be encouraged to personalize their chairs, and I will bring a variety of modern and antique stick chairs for inspiration.
We will be using green wood (high moisture content) and a minimal toolset, authentic to the JP folk tradition. Much of the week will be spent sitting on Lefkowitz shavehorses with locally-forged drawknives in hand. Every student will go home with a completed chair, the skills to build another and a good understanding of wood behavior. Historically, JP chairs are not saddled, but you will have the opportunity to carve your seat if you’d like.
Location
The class will be hosted by Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, a non-profit performing arts and education center in Annapolis. This will be the first chairmaking course in Maryland Hall’s history, and it might even be the first public Jimmy Possum chair class in the United States!
The school is less than a mile from Annapolis’s historic downtown, best known for its charming brick buildings, the Naval Academy, Maryland blue crab and its proximity to the Chesapeake Bay. June is a great time to visit; we’ll be in crab season, and– don’t sweat – the school will have just completed installing their brand-new HVAC system.
Please email [email protected] with any questions.
— Lewis Laskin
We’re delighted our 24″ Joiner’s Rules got a mention in the April 2026 issue of Fine Woodworking magazine – thank you, FWW editorial staff!
We’re also happy that our brass-bound Joiner’s Rules are now back in stock for the first time since the holidays. All of us have pitched in over the last few days to scribe and ink the lines that help your eyes more easily see quarters and eighths. (And, er, one lucky person will get the special one I stamped yesterday with the Crucible logo between 10″ and 11, instead of our usual spot between 11″ and 12″. It’s sure to be a collector’s item!)
– Fitz
Join me and my dovetail saw February 20-21 at the Forge Nashville for a Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event. I’ll be working on a stepstool or a Shaker tray…or some other fun, small dovetailed project as time allows. Plus I’ll have a selection of our books available for purchase. (But if I’m away from my post, look for me at the amazing Alf Sharp’s bench!)
At the event, try out all the LN tools and get expert guidance as you learn from the LN staff, talk to guest demonstrators and hang out with a passel of fellow hand tool woodworkers. Plus, you can check out the Forge itself, a non-profit organization with wood and metal shops, a makerspace and gallery, private studios and more. You can find out more about the event here.
The Forge is at 217 Willow Street, Nashville, Tenn., and there is on-site parking. Hours are Friday, Feb. 20, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and Saturday, Feb. 21, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
– Fitz
I’m working on a profile of Don Weber, which will appear in Issue 4 of “The Stick Chair Journal.” To help share Don’s life story – so rich and full it could be a book – I’ve been reaching out to folks he’s known at various points in his life, folks he calls friends to this day.
Earlier this week, Matty Sears spoke with me on the phone about his deep friendship with Don, and their respect for each other.
Mike Abbott wrote, “His great enthusiasm for anything to do with green woodwork and chairmaking encouraged me to throw myself into giving pole-lathe demonstrations at country fairs, which helped publicise my chairmaking courses.”
“Don first started working with greenwood and blacksmithing while he lived here,” Monroe Robinson wrote of the time period years ago when Don lived on his property. “He built a small bodger structure on the edge of the redwood forest using small redwood trees and recycled corrugated steel for roofing and siding. Eventually, he put a triphammer in the little structure. I always loved the sound of Don working there, including the triphammer. Don’s work always inspired me – making something useful and beautiful out of what most folks would call nothing. He made a little gate that he installed between our house … I love the gate to this day.”
These conversations share a common thread of goodwill and generosity, a welcome respite from the flashes of news on my phone.
It’s a theme present in nearly every profile I write – folks not just talking about themselves, but sharing the kindness of people in their lives and especially the kindness that can be found in the craft community.
From a 1936 “Chips from the Chisel” column in The Woodworker Magazine, edited by Charles H. Hayward:
“The Italian Renaissance was the golden age of craftsmanship. There was an amazing flowering of genius in painting, sculpture, goldsmith’s and silversmith’s work, in fact in every kind of craft, research and experiment were carried to the limit. Ideas were in the air, bandied about in workshop and studio, till the fertile soil of genius brought them to perfection. And it is significant that it was an age of great good fellowship among craftsmen. Competition was terrific; there were so many of them at the game and the prizes were glittering, but again and again it is evident from the pages of Vasari how freely they pooled their experiences, and how freely criticism, advice and generous appreciation circulated. They were a mixed bunch too. Dullards and plodders worked side by side with talented men, and there were inspired cut-throats among the men of genius. But this much they all had in common: a love of the work they found to their hand and a readiness to pass on the knowledge they had acquired.”
And so often, good fellowship is unexpected.
Earlier this month, I received a package from Shad Watson. Turns out, Shad’s family are descendants of Nannau, now settled in North Carolina. They’ve lived on the same creek for more than 250 years in an area called Nanneytown.
In the package was a silver coin commemorating Nannau’s legends. On one side is a design heavily influenced by Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s 1813 sketch of the infamous oak, which is featured in my book, “Cadi & the Cursed Oak.” GS-JJ helped Shad adapt the design and together, they minted 10 medallions.
Shad simply wanted to thank those who have a deep affection for Nannau and work to share its stories. (Thank you, Shad!)
Kindness and making things, whether it’s woodworking, coins or jazz, always bring to mind one of my favorite stories from Jennie Alexander. Here, an excerpt from her Meet the Author profile:
Jennie spent her childhood pounding away at the piano and later became a self-taught jazz musician who played professionally. “I enjoyed that very much and I met some wonderful people,” she says. “I grew up in the time when New Orleans jazz was being revised and at the same time be-bop was being created. And it was very interesting that the two groups coincided. In other words, they knew each other. They hung out together. We got together and had a good time.”
One of the more well-known jazz musicians at the time was a man named Benny, who Jennie said was very active on the be-bop side, when not in jail. The two never met until many years later, when Jennie was transitioning. It was 2007. The last job Jennie ever played as a male was with Benny on drums. The two were part of a trio playing at one of Jennie’s alma maters, St. John’s College.
“It was a wonderful job,” Jennie says. “I had driven Benny down from Baltimore and we drove back and I said, ‘Benny, would you like dinner?’ And he said, ‘Sure.’ And so I went upstairs, came back as a female and we went to dinner. We had a very pleasant dinner. He is just a nice, gentle person with a wonderful beat, by the way. And two-thirds of the way into dinner Benny looked and me and said, ‘John! You’ve really changed!’ And that was the nicest, from-the-heart little thing.”
Nothing more was said, and the two finished dinner. “It speaks to jazz, friendship and kindness,” Jennie says. “And those are such wonderful, wonderful aspects of life that I enjoy and, of course, friendship and kindness have much to do with woodworking, too.”
I hope you have found that kindness has much to do with woodworking, too.
