I recently watched the "Mentors" episode of the Wood Works show with
David Marks where he visited with James Krenov and Art Carpenter. Of
course they showed examples of their work, and it is all incredible
but what I found really interesting was seeing their shops.

Krenov's tiny little shop consists of a nice bench, an small Inca
bandsaw and jointer, and lots of chisels and planes.

Art Carpenter's shop looks a little like a trip to a flea market. He
has an old Atlas drill press he bought for $100, an old lathe that
looks like it might have been homemade, and a nice big ol' bandsaw.

It made me stop and think, here are two of the most renowned
craftsman, still turning out what can legitimately be called works of
art, and they are doing it without many of the fancy machines that
many of us lust after. (maybe I should speak for myself... =0 )

Anyway, it was a good show ... check it out if you see it on your
cable/satellite.

Lenny

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006 19:35:05 -0500, Lenny
wrote:

It made me stop and think, here are two of the most renowned
craftsman, still turning out what can legitimately be called works of
art, and they are doing it without many of the fancy machines that
many of us lust after.

There's a lesson in that.

You'll also notice that they have huge wood stockpiles, have tidy
workshops with good lighting, and have somewhere to put their tools so
the bench is clear.

Look at the people with tidy shops (not the spotless unused ones, just
tidy) and look at the people who do good work. There's a big overlap.
You _can_ work in a tiny space, you just have to not clutter it up with
these week's useless new plastic powertool.

Look at the people buying the latest electric gadget in the DIY barns.
How many of them _ever_ make anything worth a damn?

Remember - toolmakers have an interest in you _buying_ their tools, not
in you _achieving_ anything with them afterwards.