What is offerman woodshop

Do you have a favorite piece? The work of my best friend, artist Pat Roberts has been a constant inspiration to me for about 20 years now.

He makes me laugh and dance, even while making me toot and think. Do you have any workshop rules? Have there been incidents in the past that predicated them?

The shop holds many, many dangers to life and limb and finger and eyeball, and so the first rule is to respect the tools and machinery, keep the workplace neat and clean, don goggles, dust and ear protection, and pay attention to your own work and that of your neighbor.

One great artist lost his cool a few years ago, rather habitually, and so he was excused from our company. We find the resultant recompense to be a more fortifying meal than mere dollars. On writing Gumption , how did you arrive at the idea of paying respect and very funny tribute to great Americans?

All with my usual clumsy sense of humor, or course. Airplanes were key to the completion of the work, particularly the long trans-Atlantic flights. I loved that you described George Washington as our first superhero. My dad is now retired from a career as a beloved history teacher in Channahon, Illinois. I was brought up with an appreciation and respect for the early leaders of our nation, which has burgeoned over the years into a desire to remind myself and my readers of the solid values upon which our country was founded combined with the unavoidable hypocrisy therein.

For example, writing the Declaration of Independence while practicing slavery, or touting the Christ-like teachings of the Bible while discriminating against women or same-sex marriage.

Have you ever considered either professional path? I apparently require the spice of variety too much to be satisfied in a classroom or behind a TV desk for any length of time. What was your primary motivation in writing this book? This paid off handsomely when Nick began his professional theatre career in Chicago, as he offset his meager acting income with building scenery and props for large equity theaters.

For the latest on Nick's writing and performance work, check out his personal website. Originally from nearby Cerritos, California, Krys has been working with wood since high school shop class. Sarah was born in the sticks of Indiana. At age ten, she and the family moved out West.

Bragg, CA. Her career in woodworking though began earlier, in , with a fortuitous meeting in the downtown library of Oakland, CA. This meeting with Bay Area woodworker Trevor Hadden led to a five-month apprenticeship in which Trevor taught her the foundations of woodworking, and machine use and maintenance.

Between then and her move to Los Angeles in Sarah and friends ran a collective warehouse in Oakland that hosted a wood shop, print shop, car shop and artist studios. With a formal background in design and an informal background in carpentry and framing, she enjoys designing and building on all scales but these days primarily focuses on fine furniture. Clio is a woodworker, soft sculptor, and musician who has inhabited many pastoral landscapes prior to winding up in sunny Los Angeles.

Dogged as always, Clio hung around until they found something else for her to do. Five years later, she now manages the shop and is rarely seen anywhere else.

Growing up on a farm, Ric spent a lot of time working with his hands. Even after he moved to town and worked as a history teacher, he spent his summers doing labor. He worked on local farms, did odd jobs, and spent 18 summers laying asphalt. He worked with wood a lot, but never purposefully created something out of wood until — the year Nick needed help getting up to the toilet. Ever the attentive parent, Ric made him a handy little step stool out of pine. Since then, he has outfitted the family living room with an entertainment center and end tables out of oak, and for their dining room Ric built a china closet out of oak to match the existing antique one.

For the last few years, he has put in a lot of time working on the scroll saw and laminating hardwoods. As a result, he has furnished most of his friends and family with cutting boards, Christmas ornaments, Cribbage boards, and bird houses. Matt stumbled backwards into woodworking at the tender age of He previously spent 7 years apprenticing as a grade school janitor, but upon moving to Los Angeles he spurned his dream to take up antique restoration at Shabby Chic.

Matt quickly became the most adept carpenter of the 3 actors employed there. Another piece of newer equipment is the compound sliding miter saw, a Kapex, manufactured by Festool , which can make very precise cross cuts.

The miter saw has 8 feet of outfeed support on both the left and right sides of the blade to accommodate very long boards. In a small shop, space is valuable, so the area above the saw is reserved for the storage of milled boards. It can be as simple as cleaning up a small piece of maple with a hand saw, a block plane, and some sandpaper to make a cutting board.

With the right prep work and a coat of oil, a basic project like this can be enough to hook somebody on woodworking. Nick offers even more advice on beginning woodworking in his book Good Clean Fun and on a special segment of Ask This Old House that will air in early Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.

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Miter Saw Station Photo by Mark Lohman Another piece of newer equipment is the compound sliding miter saw, a Kapex, manufactured by Festool , which can make very precise cross cuts.