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About-Laguna-Cup-2-1One great aspect of being senior editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine is I get to meet people from all over the world who have the same warped (pun intended) sense of humor as I. So, naturally, when I got an email from John Madden (who is a Laguna representative “down under”…check out Gregory Machinery‘s web site for more info) letting me know that Laguna Australia is running a contest called The Laguna Wood Cup where the prize is a Laguna ’14-Twelve’ band saw (read my review here) and the title “World’s Best Woodworker of all Time”, I had to take a closer look.

While the contest is being initiated in Australia, they’d like to get some entries from North America (and other places) to make the contest truly international…worldwide, if you will. I mean, seriously, what good is the title of “World’s Best Woodworker” if the whole world isn’t involved, right?

And while the (almost) poetic verse at the beginning of this post and the winning title might appeal to my tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, the contest and prizes are quite real. There’s only one category and entry into the contest is free. You can enter as many times as you like but there are some stipulations: whatever piece you make needs to be primarily made of wood; you need to be the person who made it; and you had to have made it in the last 12 months. The prize is a fully decked out Laguna ’14-Twelve’ band saw. The contest is open to amateur and professional woodworkers alike. For more info on the contest check out lagunanation.com.au (no, you don’t need to send your project to Australia…).

I’ll be keeping in touch with John to see how the entries are rolling in. Hopefully, I’ll even get to post a few pics here on the PW Editors’ Blog (John, are you listening?). The contest sounds like a ton of fun and the people running it sound even more so.

Oh, and John assures me that if the winner is from North America, he’ll work out something to deliver the prize. If they pay for the trip, I’m officially offering my services to trek there, pick up the prize and deliver it to the winner.

So, get your projects wrapped up and get them submitted before the October 1, 2014 deadline. It would be lots of fun if a PW reader was crowned (John, is there a crown?) best woodworker in the world!

–– Chuck Bender


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