When I first visited Rosewood Studio, it was in Almonte, Ontario, and perched on the banks of the Mississippi River (no connection to the river of the same name in the United States). I was taking a chair class at another school that week and stopped by Rosewood to check it out.
I was impressed. For a small school, Rosewood attracted top-notch instructors, motivated students and had an excellent facility that was near a good pub and a great bakery.
In the last seven years, things have changed.
Rosewood is now in the town of Perth, Ontario, a gorgeous old stone village filled with nice places to eat and drink. The school is located in an Art Deco auto dealership building and still offers an excellent facility and great instructors, such as Michael Fortune and Garrett Hack.
What’s different? I’m an instructor instead of a visitor.
Ron Barter, the owner of Rosewood Studio, invited me to teach two classes there during the next seven days: a five-day class on “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” and a two-day class on building a Shaker wall cabinet.
Obviously, I said “yes,” and we just finished up the first day of teaching the tool chest class. So far, the biggest challenge has been that this is probably the most experienced group of students I’ve taught. We didn’t need to cover sharpening. We didn’t need to cover handplane setup. We just plowed into the work.
I hope I have some control of this crew when Friday comes. If I do, then good for me. If I don’t good on them.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. I can attest that Perth has some excellent pubs. I’ll report back later on the bakery situation.
To an American woodworker, the Melbourne, Australia, workshop of Alastair Boell is a place both familiar and strange at the same time.
Boell, a graduate of the North Bennet Street School in Boston, has lots of old American iron in his shop:
• A Tannewitz 36” band saw he bought for $750 from a business closing down. It was in unrestored condition. He pulled the whole thing apart while in Boston. Re-sprayed it. Replaced the bearings and took it apart to get it into the shipping container. Alastair guesses it was built in the 1950s.
• An Oliver 24” patternmaker’s jointer built in 1922 for the American Navy. It even has a Navy yard number stamped on it and its price – $1,933.22.
• Oliver patternmaker’s lathe built in the 1970s. It has 8’ (and a bit) between centers.
What is somewhat strange is all the timber. Alastair has taken an enormous interest in salvaging urban lumber – including lots of species that are hard to get in Australia. So the rafters are packed with all sorts of odd timbers – I don’t know if I’ve ever been in a shop that was filled with such a wide variety of species.
And then there’s all the Australian accents, the upside-down weather and the colorful idioms from the students and Alastair – bless his cotton socks.
All in all, it’s just similar enough to an American shop that you can work comfortably on your own on the machines. But it’s just strange enough that you have really weird Australian-themed dreams.
Alastair and his wife, Jacqueline, run the Melbourne Guild of Fine Woodworking in a light industrial area inside the neighborhood of Box Hill. Box Hill itself adds another layer of surreal for Americans because it’s filled with Asians who all speak with an Australian accent.
The Boells started the school in Box Hill five years ago after returning to Melbourne from the United States. At first, Alastair began working at a nearby not-for-profit school, but after 18 months he left. Then he worked at another not-for-profit school and had a bad experience. He decided to start his own school.
The Melbourne Guild conducts three sorts of classes – open classes, where students bring their own projects. Specialist classes that cover a particular topic. And Masterclass series, where Alastair brings in people such as chairmaker Peter Galbert.
“All the inspiration for all of this is from the United States,” Alastair says. “Everything is emanating from the U.S. at this point – the tools, literature, teachers, revival in hand skills and old machinery.”
In addition to the school, Alastair runs a timber business with a couple other partners that cuts and dries salvaged timbers from neighborhoods, botanical gardens and other urban places.
“I always loved the idea of salvaging timber,” Alastair says. “You can source your own material. Plan your project. Mill your components. Finish it. Use it. Hand it off to your children. The total cycle. There is no other medium I know of that you can have that same journey with.”
The business – Big Sky Timber – is the result of Alastair meeting Pete McCurly, who makes sculpture and has devoted his life to Australian trees.
“When Peter he was a teenager he spent years protesting old-growth logging,” Alastair says. “He lived in a tent. Pete’s very passionate about trees.”
The business came together when Tony, a childhood friend of Alastair, became interested in salvaging urban lumber and invested the money needed to get the business going.
Now if all this seems like a lot to take on for one guy, you’re right. Alastair might be one of the busiest people I’ve ever met.
This morning he was working in the shop on some milling for some bent-laminations. Then he and Pete moved some massive blackwood logs using a crane truck and spent the afternoon positioning a huge hydraulic duplicator lathe. Later he and his family set up for an evening seminar for 50 woodworkers and cleaned up the place afterward into the late hours.
It is, in his own words, a crusade to improve the craftsmanship of his countrymen. What’s obvious is that he has the energy (and family support) to do it. What isn’t as immediately obvious is how highly skilled Alastair is at the bench. The only two testaments to his mastery at the school are his workbench and his tool chest from North Bennet – both fairly low-key objects at first glance. (His graduation project – a stunning and complex Federal piece – is in his bedroom at home.)
While Alastair wasn’t around, I spent some time fiddling with his tool chest, looking at his joints and trying to figure him out through his work. Personally, I think Australia is lucky to have him, and I wish we Americans had been fortunate enough to keep him.
Earlier this year, Linda Nathan of Australian Wood Review interviewed me for a short piece in the magazine. While she didn’t ask me what was my “drag queen name,” she did ask some interesting questions. Here they are.
What are the core principles you teach students?
I am a reluctant teacher to be sure. I study the craft every day. I work at the craft every day. And I write about it every day. I don’t think that qualifies me to teach it, however, but I am asked to do it, and so here is what I teach:
There are lots of new things to be discovered in woodworking. And the fastest way to learn them is to embrace all the work our ancestors have done for us. Read everything old that you can get your hands on. Try to understand the world they worked in. Understand their tools. Understand their mind-set. If you can do that, you will obtain skills a lot faster than if you tried to hack a path forward on your own.
So I spend a lot of time trying to explain that L. P. Hartley is right: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
Plus one more thing from my woodworking hero, John Brown: “By all means read what the experts have to say. Just don’t let it get in the way of your woodworking.”
So respect and understand the past. But be prepared to reject it.
What is more important, the making of a piece or the piece itself?
In my shop, they are equal. If the piece sucks, then the time was wasted. If building the piece destroyed your lungs, health, mental state or the world around you, then maybe you should have just shopped at Ikea.
What is sharp?
Sharp is easy. It’s the zero-radius intersection of two surfaces. Getting there is what makes woodworkers crazy. The truth is that every system works. What I hope woodworkers will do is practice sharpening “monogamy” – stick with a system for at least a couple years so that you can learn its ins and outs. It takes time to fully master oilstones, waterstones, sandpaper, whetstone grinders, the sidewalk outside their house or whatever.
By sticking with one system, you’ll find your edges improve over time. Jumping around from system to system is only going to make you confused and poor.
Who are/were the greatest woodworkers on earth?
I’m a writer, so I always frame that question in terms of people who were able to explain the craft through words and images. Without any doubt, Charles H. Hayward was the giant of the last 100 – perhaps 200 – years. His traditional (somewhat brutal) training, artistic talent and straightforward style make him an influence in woodworking that has yet to be matched.
Yet, I have no idea if his joints were tight and his surfaces fair.
From a purely technical perspective, I admire the Hall brothers, who produced the furniture and millwork for Charles and Henry Greene. Their accomplishments, which I have viewed first-hand – haven’t been equalled in the last 200 years, at least in North America.
Your desert island tool kit would be?
Hey, I wrote a book about that, “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” which details the 50-odd tools that allow you to build almost any piece of furniture. That is, if you need a highboy in your treehouse. However, after reading “Robinson Crusoe,” I think all I’d really want for a desert island is something that could crack coconuts and make a bow and arrow.
The best thing you ever made? Why?
That changes every week. Right now, I’m enamored with the campaign chests and Roorkhee chairs I’ve been building for a forthcoming book on campaign and colonial furniture. The stuff is so masculine – combining simple designs with mahogany and beautiful brasses. The stuff makes me want to smoke a cigar, even though I don’t own a pith helmet or a gun.
From an emotional perspective, I’m most proud of two reproduction Shaker pieces I built and donated to the Whitewater Shaker colony, which is in our back yard.
The worst thing?
Easy. It was my first project for the cabinetmaking course I took at the University of Kentucky in 1993. It was a blanket chest. My finger joints were so horrible that I had to screw them together to make them stay fixed. Then I used an awful water-base finish that made the chest look like albino beef jerky.
I hated the thing, but my wife and kids used it all the time. Finally, one day while she was away at work, I handed it over to the garbagemen. Catharsis.
The thing you like most about woodworking?
I love that you can never know it all. Heck, you’ll never even know 10 percent of it. You can study every day for the rest of your life and still be a piker when you die.
So it’s never boring. Every day is an opportunity to learn something new and make something beautiful – what’s not to like about that?
The following idea is a long shot and likely to end up being a pain in my butt. But here goes.
For those of you signed up to take my class on building a campaign chest in May at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking, one of the biggest challenges is coming up with wood that is worthy.
Frank David at Midwest Woodworking in Norwood, Ohio, has a good stock of wide stock (including hineyloads of mahogany) that is gorgeous, old and fairly priced.
If I can get enough people interested, I’d be happy to try to arrange a visit to Midwest on the Friday before the class begins, May 3. You can pick out the stock that suits your fancy and your budget. You’ll get to see the very awesome Midwest Woodworking lumber stores. And, if you’re not too weird, we can all go to Gordo’s afterward for a great burger and an even better beer.
I promise you that you will be glad you made the trip.
Yeah, I know that this might be impossible for some students who are coming from long distances.
No, I can’t pick out wood for you. I can barely even pick out wood for myself.
Yes, you can come and purchase wood even if you aren’t signed up for the class.
No, I can’t pick out your wood for you and bring it to the class or drop it off at your house.
Yes, you can bring your truck and buy all you want (bring cash. American dollars).
No, I can’t send you photos of some of the boards and purchase them for you.
Yes, you can eat a hamburger from Gordo’s with goat cheese and grape compote and still call yourself a man.
No, I can’t transport your lumber to Indiana for you (I have only a little car).
Midwest is a jewel of a place. If I had any sense I’d never talk about it on the blog, never tell any of my friends about it, and deny it even exists. But I’m an idiot. So come take advantage of my idiocy.
P.S. Honestly, I can’t buy lumber for you. Or transport it. Or store it. Or cut it. I can barely wipe myself. If you need wide mahogany for the class and can’t find any, call Wall Lumber in North Carolina. Or Irion in Pennsylvania.
I always enjoy tool sales, such as those put on at the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association, but after years of attending them, surprises at these shows are few and far between.
So it was quite a rush to attend a tool meet put on by the Hand Tool Preservation Association of Australia this morning. There were so many tools and brands that I’ve never seen before. I stayed until they started packing up the boxes to leave.
What’s different? Plenty.
Common Stanley stuff was pretty expensive. While you could still find garden-variety bench planes for $50 or so, the 19th-century Stanley planes were crazy expensive – like $250 for a Type 8 No. 7.
Some expensive stuff in the U.S. was cheap in Australia. I saw a Millers Falls No. 42 coping saw for $2. Tons of Swedish Eskiluna chisels for almost nothing. Sweet combination squares (in Imperial measurements) for less than $20.
Used Japanese tools. Thanks to Australia’s somewhat closer proximity to Japan, they actually get a fair amount of used Japanese tools imported into the country. I saw many beautiful Japanese chisels for $15 each. I didn’t dare buy one because I don’t know any of the names.
Infills, infills, infills. They were everywhere. I saw Norris, Mathison and a bunch of other lesser makers. There was an unused shell casting ($55). Lots of shoulder planes and bullnose planes, many in gunmetal. Two panel planes. And infill mallets ($55 each).
Buttloads of cross-peen hammers. I think I saw 50 or 200, I can’t remember. Most were going for about $20.
Very few moulding planes. Unlike U.S. shows, there were hardly any moulding planes. I saw one beat-up beader. One hollow. A few wacky profiles.
In any case, it was great fun poking through all the piles of rust. I could have stayed for another three hours and still not seen everything I wanted to pick up and play with.
I did buy one small item – a wooden architect’s triangle made from boxwood and very cleverly joined.
