To first set things straight - David Marks was never, ever on PBS. His show was on the DIY Network. Also David had an agreement with Woodcraft for awhile and spent time giving classes in Woodcraft stores. It wasn't until he hired his wife to manage his business that he realized he wasn't making his numbers. That's about when he decided to teach classes at his studio.

Tommy's new shop, was discussed in an earlier posting I made several weeks ago. It's clear from the linked article, he may be moving away from being the furniture build guy on PBS. But who knows. It's a bit hard to relate to someone who has several hundred thousand dollars of tools when all one has is a circular saw and a drill. However, there is so much more on the Internet these days that show mostly men using a simple set of tools to make furniture. Some of it is not quite the quality that either Norm or Tommy have done, but usable.

Aso to Tommy's using guests. If you knew what it takes to build a somewhat complicated piece of furniture and show it in various stages of completion during a 30 minute show, I'd doubt many of us would be up for the challenge. I have no qualm in Tommy's guests and often they are their to help him do specific tasks while he's off doing something else.

The biggest difference between Norm and Tommy is that Tommy doesn't not necessarily show all the steps that it takes to build something. He will talk about it, then pull out the completed part. Norm at least try to show you what it takes to build things. That said I think it's great that we have someone like Tommy on TV.

I work as a teacher's aide in a high school wood shop and lots of the students coming in are not really interested in doing furniture building for a living. But the skills that they are acquiring hopefully will plant the seed that later on in their life they might come back to it. We owe it to the next generation to keep the craft going. And it's shows like "Rough Cut" that hopefully keep the ideals of craftsmanship going.

I totally recommend another PBS show "Craftsman Legacy" with Eric Georges. Eric build motorcycles and goes around "mostly" Michigan to interview different crafts people - woodworkers, sculptors, shoemakers, watch makers, etc. He's gets these people to open up about how they got started and works with them on building something in their studio. A very good series on some PBS shows if you enjoy watching people build stuff. More info he http://www.craftsmanslegacy.com

MJ