Chris and I are both packing our tool cases to teach next week at the London International Woodworking Festival.
Traveling by plane always forces some difficult tool decisions. I’m teaching the Dutch tool chest (quelle surprise!), so I’m deciding on the absolute minimum number of tools I require to teach dovetails, dados and rabbets/rebates, along with the basics including a 6" adjustable square and block plane (don’t leave home without ‘em!).
There are tools available at the venue. The Festival takes place at the London Design & Engineering UTC (what we would in the U.S. call a vocational high school) and all proceeds benefit the school’s East London Furniture Institute, which provides specialist training in all aspects of making furniture. And they have more Veritas skew rabbet planes than do I, so I’m not taking mine – that tool doesn’t feel as personal as my dovetail saw (which I am absolutely taking). I love my Plumb hammer…but it would be silly to haul that extra 1.6 lbs across an ocean. I can bear for one week the ignominy of swinging a fiberglass-handles hammer. If I must. I’m taking a small double square…but only one of my usual three. And only one dovetail template – the 1:6/1:8 of course! (Or does that count as two?)
No matter what I decide, I’ll make at least one decision I regret. Probably the hammer; there are a lot of nails to drive in the DTC!
– Fitz
p.s. We both use carry-on-size hard cases for airplane tool travel – not that we can carry them on, of course. Chris uses a Pelican 1510; I use a Nanuk 935. We wrote about them for Never Sponsored a few years back.
Lost Art Press Blog
A Tall Drink of a Cabinet
I’m in the midst of renovating my kitchen (there’s still an island and a few other pieces to build), but last week, I finished this 8' tall mug cabinet (I might have a drinkware problem).
