[WIA] Pasadena Pics

I'm finally home after a long trip to Woodworking In America West, in Pasadena. This had a side-trip to Port Townsend, WA tacked onto the end.

My trusty Lumix camera finally gave up the ghost, but Tim Lawson saved me by letting me borrow his, so I was able to get a few shots.

Blue Spruce tools always impress, and it is always a joy to talk to Dave Jeske, their maker.

There were some power tools, too.

An example of marquetry:

A bench almost too nice to use:

It was especially great to meet and speak with Chris Vesper, an Australian toolmaker. It is not possible to word how lovely his tools look and feel. They are not cheap, but he explained that he basically makes minimum wage because of the labor involved in producing them. I want one of the bevel gauges.

Christopher Schwarz led a talk on rapidly building a saw bench without having a sawbench to use. He also stuck with hardware-store tools. He did this atop an amazing bench built by Erik Mortensen, but refused to use the holdfasts, vises, and other workholding features as he was prentending to be using a "kitchen table". Erik was justifiably proud of his bench and I think found this hard to watch.

Roy Underhill is just the same in person as he is on his show.

He was trying out a POV camera, giving him an odd cyborg appearance and a very interesting video backdrop, especially when he looked at the screen and ripped a hole in the spacetime continuum via video feedback.

Dinner with friends

I had a number of complex reactions to the event and where it could or should go in the future, but that will be another post. I just wanted to get some images out there while they are somewhat fresh. There will be more to come, but for now I am glad to be home and will hopefully get a little shop time in after all of this talking about woodworking and not doing any!