Woodworking globally and locally

I find myself testing the truth of good tools at the bench and know some things get harder to find around the world. Finding good tools should get easier but for some small principalities it seems hard if not impossible. How it is in Malaysia or the Philippines I don't know but all the more our net has now encompassed distant regions of the world yet we do nothing except speak to simplify  the art and reality of true workmanship.

I'm amazed that we are finally turning the corner here after half a century when we could never really get a toe hold in the door to reverse the damage of those decades. My work gets easier now by the day as people fight their way off the treadmill in their home towns and home workshops and now all the more enjoy complex woodworking using the simplest methods and simplest of dead ordinary hand tools too. I feel all we've ever offered is the reality of simplicity, realness and such.

I like the local level of my work all the more these days too. Perhaps it's the flaw in me of not wanting to be some kind of rugged individual or the macho character but like those spheres where interdependency thrives and interaction deepens relationships of real value and consequence. I don't just like it a bit, I like it very much.

Phil's finishing off a box and has yet to conclude the actual finish on his rocking chair. We all have way too much to do with so little help. We've grown all the closer through the vision I have for establishing a crafting cooperative of woodworking craftsmen. You know, a place where we shove machines out so people can work safely together and talk as they work with one another as we do in the everyday of life. Now Sam's come on board for a season of apprenticeship too. His bench is freestanding solidly squat square on it's four legs and he should have the superstructure together hopefully tomorrow. He has the well to do yet and then he makes his drawer.  I changed some features of this bench to go in my new bench making course and it's made it really succinct and though this bench has always been my rock solidest design, the small additions make it all the more solid. Sam was able to customise this o