Handworks 2017, Day 2

J. Wilding moving fillister plane

After Handworks 2017 wrapped up last Saturday, I took a few days off work as we wended our way back across the plains to Cincinnati (yes – I actually spent an entire three days doing almost nothing one might consider productive…and it was glorious).

But it’s hardly fair to call Handworks “work.” It was a delight to not only see and try out the hand tools from so many top-notch makers, but to meet face to face so many Instagram and Facebook friends, and to meet in person some Popular Woodworking authors for the first time – including the delightful Kieran Binnie of Over the Wireless, who wrote the Karl Holtey profile in our June 2016 issue, and who, thanks to an offhand comment at Handworks, is now working on another article for us. So I guess it was sort of “work?” Nah – too much fun.

There were more than 50 exhibitors and demonstrators spread over five buildings, and while I think I saw all of them and took a ton of pictures, I wasn’t able to try out every new tool (looking at you Dave Jeske, with that nifty-looking Blue Spruce Toolworks coping saw…that I’m sure will be on your site soon?). I did, however, get to take a shaving or two with the new large combination plane from Veritas

You can see pictures from Day 1 in my Saturday morning post (processing and posting those on the road counts in my book as actual (if easy) work…so I wasn’t a total slacker!). If nothing else, click to see Jim Moon’s stunning reproduction of the Studley chest (on which we’ve an article coming soon to an issue near you).

Below are some more pictures, plus a couple from the Lemfco Foundry in Galena, Ill., where Benchcrafted castings are done. Thanks to Father John and Jameel Abraham (who also has a new article in the works), we got a behind-the-scenes tour on Monday. Very cool.

— Megan Fitzpatrick