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Bob Baker, a furniture and tool restorer and excellent planemaker, died unexpectedly last week.
I had the pleasure of meeting Bob in February of 2006 when we hosted a gathering in Cincinnati for many of the best planemakers and gave each of them the opportunity to present their work to one another, and to talk about planes, planemaking and toolmaking in general. Bob was high on that list of “best planemakers.” In the picture at left, he’s presenting two of his planes to the rest of the group.
I met him only that one day, but as I look back through the pictures of the event, I remember a kind and genuine man who had a grin on his face almost the entire time. Kari Hultman, who knew him better than did I, has written more about Bob on her blog, The Village Carpenter, and there are some touching comments below her post that I hope you’ll take the time to read.
Editor Christopher Schwarz wrote a story about about our “planemakers'” event for the August 2006 issue, which features some of Bob’s work. You can link to it here.
Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.
