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Our new-ish online editor, Tom Nunlist, started a little less that a year ago, and took like a Kentuckian to bourbon in his “real” job, which is to handle the backend of the web site, shoot and edit videos, write the weekly newsletter, help readers with online, er, challenges and more.
In other words, he was hired for his technological expertise, rather than his woodworking experience…which was zero.
But when he was hired, Tom expressed interest in learning more about woodworking than just the lexicon he’d need to edit our posts and write the newsletter. And now, he’s completed his first project for the magazine – a modular bookshelf and wine rack for the December 2012 I Can Do That column, under the expert tutelage of Robert W. Lang. (And FYI, the issue will be mailing to subscribers, both digital and postal, in two weeks).
Although I think Tom was disappointed that he couldn’t use the table saw for an ICDT project, he did get to plug in and use a miter saw for the crosscuts, a router to cut rabbets and a jigsaw for the angles on the ends of the shelf. Oh – and he got his first taste of hand tools with the block plane he used to clean up the joints. (Now, I need to teach him to sharpen a plane blade and teach him cut dovetails…ya know…lure him to the hand-tool side of things early in his avocation before he becomes too enamored of those tailed tools.)
You can read Tom’s first story now – like all of our ICDT projects, it’s free online. And if you’re at Woodworking in America this weekend (the Marketplace is open to the public from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center, tickets are $10 at the door), try to find Tom (he’s about 25 years old…so look for a young fellow), introduce yourself and welcome him to the woodworking fold. He did a great job with his first project – we’re very proud.
