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This week, Christopher is in Berea, Ky., at Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking where he’s teaching a class in building a French bench (you can read about and watch videos of his exploits over on his blog). Usually when he’s out of town, Chris takes all his favorite hand tools along for the ride, but the bench build, for the most part, uses power tools – so he and the students are giving Kelly’s awesome Felder machinery a good workout. He left his hand tools at home.
Now Chris is always generosity itself in allowing me borrow his tools (though I’m doing my best to amass a good working selection of my own). If I need a large router plane, for example, I’m welcome to go in his tool chest and get one. If I need to plane a pesky area of tear-out on a piece of figured wood, I can reach my hand into his hanging cabinet and grab one of his high-angle planes (any excuse to use his Wayne Anderson smoother…). In fact, the only two tools of his I’m forbidden to use are his Andrew Lunn backsaws. The Lunn dovetail saw is, beyond question, the tool of Chris’s that I most covet.
So guess what he left atop his bench, where I can see it every time I walk into the shop?
That’s just mean.
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Well I’m confused Megan. Why can you not have one of those saws? Just buy one.
Sprinkle some particle board sawdust around and on top of them.
I’d suggest you carefully draw a chalk outline around both saws, then hide them. Also a little crime scene tape stretched across the bench would add a nice touch!
Dave
so, what is the other off-limits tool?
Now that you’ve motivated me highly to obtain an Andrew Lunn dovetail saw, I read that he his no longer making saws! How cruel is that? 😉
http://www.popularwoodworking.com/article/andrew-lunn-exits-the-sawmaking-business
Never having held an AL saw, why is it your forbidden fruit?
I recommend selling them for $66.
I recommend replacing them with cheap, plastic-handled saws from the big box store and hiding his A.L. saws.
I recommend covering the saws with a pillowcase, so you don’t have to look at them.
Like a dead body.
-Steve