As soon as I found out about Wood Dust I knew I wanted to go. The difficulty was it being over in Canberra and that due to the nature of my day job I don’t spend anywhere near enough time with my family as it is. Luckily my wife is also my biggest supporter in all aspects of life, so it was decided to do a road trip across to Canberra so I could attend Wood Dust.
In the very short time it took between finding out about Wood Dust and the family deciding we would travel across to Canberra the Master Class with Matt Kenney that I wanted to attend had already sold out. I had wanted to attend Matt’s class not only because I really wanted to learn about Kumiko from him, but more so because of what Matt has brought to my life over the past few years via his contributions to Fine Woodworking, shop talk live (listening to Matt Kenney and Mike Pekovich made many a drive home so much more enjoyable and educational), facebook, instagram etc but specifically his openness about life and the struggles we all face. Matt is a very inspirational person – my wife often teases me that Matt Kenney, Marc Spagnuolo and Vic Tesolin are my ‘man crushes’.. and given that I was more or less lost for words and acted like a complete fan boy when I saw Matt and Vic at Wood Dust this year, (even though I have met Vic in the past and managed to string sentences together fine the first time I met him), maybe my wife is right… I certainly hope to one day be able to contribute to the world and create things of beauty that will outlast our short lives like these craftsman have done/continue to do… they inspire me not just in woodworking, but in philosophy and approach to life in general and I feel like I’m a better person for having stumbled down the woodworking rabbit warren and coming across so many talented educators online.
It was actually Mike Pekovich that first got me intrigued about kumiko with his experiments in kumiko a few years back (I’ve definitely been more of a woodworking enthusiast over the years rather than a doer) and that interest has been growing as it seems to have been growing in popularity in the western world over the past couple of years.
While I didn’t get to attend Matt’s longer Master Class I was fortunate enough to get into his shorter class. Two of the pictures in this post are actually from that short class – well the black and white one is, the nice photo posted by Matt was a photo he took at some stage after the class.
Matt is a natural teacher who adapted well when things didn’t go perfectly to plan and he also adjusted his explanations and descriptions to suit different people in the class to ensure we all got as much out of the class as we could.
Once we got back to Adelaide after our road trip it took me a little while before I got a chance to get out in the workshop… but one of the very first things I started on was making some jigs so I could start trying my hand at some kumiko. The plan being that once the jigs are prepared and I’ve cheated and roughly prepared the strips on the tablesaw, the rest of the work could be done late at night once the kids are asleep and with very little noise being created. The final thicknessing would be done using a handplane and jig, the pieces cut to length with a handsaw and angles being pared away with a chisel and angle jigs.
So.. step one was completed.. then I had to actually go back to some other projects that have been waiting for my attention for far far far too long. I’ve now finished one of those projects with the larger project (table for my mother in law) still being a work in progress.
The plan, next time I’m in the shop/garage for any good length of time is to split my time between the side table and making more jigs for my future kumiko adventures! I can’t wait!