Marching On...

“Slayer of the winter, art thou here again? O welcome, thou that bring’st the summer nigh! The bitter wind makes not the victory vain. Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky.” – William Morris

Shop made,high angle smoothing plane tames this difficult birds eye maple.

This past week I had three people ask me if things were alright and I hadn’t fallen off a pier somewhere-it’s been four weeks since my last post?  Yikes~ Beware the ides of March, indeed!

I’ve been plugging away around the shop, working through the new book projects and can honestly say I’ve been enjoying every minute of it. It seems everything I write is book material these days and I haven’t found the time to blog. My apologies to you the readers who frequent these pages. All I can say is that the projects are coming along really, really well and I hope you’ll be as happy as I when the finished product is complete.  Some shop made tools, some workshop appliances and of course the furniture projects. What I’m most excited and proud of at this point  is that all of the furniture projects are designs you won’t find in other publications. Fun projects that are both useful and inspirational and things you don’t see everyday. To be honest, I was tired of seeing the same kinds of projects appearing in wood working books and magazines- a blanket chest, a chest of drawers, a hanging cabinet, etc…Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with any of those examples but let’s face it, there’s been enough ink spilled on that sort of project already and I wanted to offer something fresh and well, different. These designs reflect my own personal style and will showcase the passion of working wood by hand.

I’m a little over a third of the way through and on track for our release date for December 2012. This time through I’m not only photographing the steps but also filming the process and will no doubt be spending my summer editing hours and hours and hours of footage that will be available to compliment the book. I’m not exactly sure at this point how everything will unfold but can say you’ll be able to access this footage and it will be a huge help for anyone interested in this body of work.

Well, that’s the news and again my apologies for the lack of posts over the last month. I’ll do my best to keep things updated as I go. With that, time to get to work.

Cheers!