I had a chance to attend the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event, hosted by the Kansas City Woodworkers (KCWW) Guild on March 26 and 27. I arrived early Friday afternoon, shortly after opening time. The parking lot was already quite crowded, and inside was just as crowded. I took this opportunity to shoot a short video, and edited only the parts in which I tilted the camera when I should have turned it off — I left the rest unedited, to give you a good feel for the activities:
The Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event – Kansas City
Duration: 16:42 minutes
This Event, no matter where it is held, is always a great opportunity to learn about hand tools. I saw several friends, and moved about recording the happenings to give you a flavor of the happenings. Deneb was quite busy, as usual, demonstrating hand planes, and just about any tool that visitors were interested in using or (eventually) purchasing. Larry, a friend of mine and colleague in our St Joseph Woodworkers Guild, tried the inlay tool set and loved it (I hope he bought it, as I would love to see some inlay work in his wonderful boxes!)
Bob Zajicek, Owner of The Czeck Edge, stayed quite busy demonstrating his layout tools, as he usually does at the shows he attends. He had on hand a great selection of his signature marking knives, burnishers, rule stops, awls, and his new line of dovetail chisels.
A wonderful surprise awaited visitors to this event. Harry “Jr.” Strasil, one of the KCWW Guild members, had his 1800s traveling hand tool shop set up and running for the entire afternoon. The video shows Jr. working away in his shop – check out the narrow workbench, with a huge array of workholding capabilities, including a leg vise on one end, dog holes galore, both on the bench top and on the back side.
At 6:50 minutes you will see Bill Johnston, the Guild’s Communications Director, showing a young boy the proper use of a hand plane. Bill runs a program to teach parents how to work with children to teach them the proper use of tools in the shop!
A nice bonus: The Kansas City Woodworkers Guild is housed in a 7,500 square foot facility, with ample room for this type of event and huge crowds. I hope the crowd was even larger on Saturday — but the rain might have been a factor. I am sorry I did not attend on Saturday, as an important commitment to my oldest granddaughter kept me away.
— Al Navas
About Al Navas
Thank you for posting this, Al!
Interesting how Jr. measures for square of the top of the workpiece, on its side, using his jointer as reference! No need to remove the workpiece to measure!
I bet one could pick up a hundred little tips like that by attending!
Oh, well..!
One day perhaps!
hoody,
You are welcome! I also learned from Jr. the trick, and will be using it! Many other tricks, all by simply attending a free event – pretty cool! I hope you can get to one of these Events soon.
Yeah..!
I sure would like to do it just once…
And pigs DO fly..! LOL!
I’ll be visiting the LN shop in Maine in 3 1/2 months! I still cannot believe it is becoming reality! I have been dreaming of this for years! The R/L situation is that there is a whole wide world out there that I want to see, and I probably will not be returning to your shores soon.
Next stop is Morrocco in 2011.
I bet hand tools are still used there in everyday production!
I cannot wait..! LOL!
They DO fly, hoody!
You might want to check the LN schedule, at http://www.lie-nielsen.com/?pg=1. They already have posted the schedule through June 2010. If this is outside of your scheduled time here, I will call them and will notify you. Or you could write them a note. Sometimes, Thomas himself might reply to e-mail traffic.
The visit to LN will be terrific. I have never been there myself, but I will plan for later this year – possibly in the Fall, to chase the wonderful colors once more.
Where in Morocco? Or is it still up in the air THAT will be a terrific vacation! We missed it when we lived so much closer…
I have ONE request for that trip: Could you PLEASE document with lots of photos? You need to publish those, especially if you will have woodworking-related pix… yessir!
Al -
So glad to finally meet you in person on Friday. The LN event was a blast! Getting to lay hands on their full tool line and see how they work, how they feel was fantastic. And always great to compare notes on construction techniques. Hope to see you around the KCWG hall or at Lee Summit more often.
Rob
Rob,
I had a blast at this Event! The setup was quite amazing, and the crowd-pleasing displays so attractive, it made one’s mouth water at the possibilities. I loved your setup, displaying your skills at cutting dovetails by hand on the miniature workbench – WOW! Thanks for the hospitality, Rob.