We may receive a commission when you use our affiliate links. However, this does not impact our recommendations.
After a week of work (and a lot of fun) assisting Christopher Schwarz with his “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” class at Roy Underhill’s The Woodwright’s School, it was nice to slow down and spend some time with blacksmith/whitesmith Peter Ross before I made the 8.5-hour drive back to Cincinnati. Roy and Jane Underhill kindly offered me a room on the top floor of their lovely 1890s mill house for the week, and it was but a short drive down country lanes from there to get to Peter’s home and smithy (though of course I got lost, so it took me longer than it should have).
Peter and I talked about his thoughts on hand-tool work, period woodworking and smithing, his involvement in the upcoming edition on the Benjamin Seaton tool chest and more; you can read more about all of that (and see pictures of his work and one of his gorgeous drawings from the new Seaton book) in the November 2012 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. Peter and I also spent a lot of time in his toasty smithy (with an incredible end-grain tiled floor), where he showed me how he hand forges and finishes a pair of dividers. You can see for yourself, below.
p.s. We filmed a lot (too much, perhaps) of Chris’s week-long tool chest class. You’ll find all the videos posted thus far here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4.
Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.
Interested if he selling these as well. Looking forward to the Ben Seaton book.
Hi Megan,
I’m with Chris; I hope you bought a pair of dividers. Mine just arrived today and I can’t wait to put them to dividing things. 🙂
It wss announced at the Williamsburg Woodworking Symposium, due out in March, and I understand it will be about twice the length of the first edition with several new chapters.
Two things:
I hope you had the good sense to buy one of those dividers from Peter.
And it takes you 8-1/2 hours to drive to Pittsboro? Did you go via Cleveland?
Nice! I like the design (one blade inside the other) rather than the more typical side-by-each join. Does he sell these (I’m assuming he does), and if so, how do we get them?
Rainer
PS I still like the red hair, even if it is Red #27 now, you crazy Irishwoman. 😉
Can you shed a little more light on the Benjamin Seaton book you referred to? Thanks!