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