It Was Just a Dream . . .

. . . Or Was It a Vision

The day was just about starting with the usual hint of the bright sunshine Texas is known for. I'd loaded the U-Haul box trailer with my display panels and furniture pieces to drive to the small town called Mesquite, Texas the night before. Mesquite's only fifteen miles from Dallas so it's near enough to have the benefit of big city crowd support without the hassle of big city prices, travel and parking, etc. My trip is short enough... about an hour and a half. Just over 100 Texas miles. There'll be no traffic to speak of in the next hour. It'll take me four hours to set up so I'm in good step to be done by noon, have a decent lunch and watch the early birds crowd the entrance for a worm of a bargain. This show is important to me. It's 1995 and the first show for me to promote myself as a woodworking instructor promoting hand tool methods of woodworking to the woodworking world. Im excited by all the mixed feelings any new enterprise gives to anyone, but I'm confident even though I am going into a new gladiator arena with the big boys of woodworking.

It's really a straight shot for me as I travel the frontage road and down the slip road onto the interstate. The sunrise behind me is a good sign even though its still just about winter. I've put so much work into creating the display over the past few weeks and then getting leaflets together explaining why I'm doing what i am doing. I realise i am smiling to myself as I travel. Who can tell what to expect. My display is 30 feet long and ten feet deep. The backdrop panels are different to every other at the show. There's a solidity to them that speaks a different story. That's what I wanted. Included in my display is a joiner's workbench made from pine and a hand made box of hand tools. As I lay out the tools on the bench people seem halted beyond reason. It's as if everything suddenly went into slo-mo mode where the strides seem elongated as they pass me. Some do a double take. Instead of walls of black, red, yellow and green walls of drill/drivers and power routers, skillsaws, boxes of screws, air-nailers and so on, here in my area they see rocking chairs and tables, backdrops of beautiful signs mounted of panels and explanations about how they can attend a course with me and learn the basics of hand tools in a matter of days. The show will start at two and my first demonstration will be at 3 PM. I'm ready. I had a good lunch, the tools are laid out and already my booth is crowded out. I have a hundred chairs in front of my bench and those most interested have taken the front two rows of premium seats.

"Welcome to the Deindustrial Revolution!" I say. I'm miked-up right from the start but for one reason only, the machines are going from wall to wall and then too everyone else is miked-up for the hype of selling. The 'opposition' is here for one reason only, they have to sell and and sell lots of what they have. With every booth selling pretty much the same gear, the scream of power routers, air nailers, power planers and all else under the machining sun is loud. But my message is important... more important. My story is different. I'm about to talk about a way of life as a woodworkers working only with hand tools. It's a sort of quietly spoken word but it speaks loudly to those who have ears to hear. In many ways it seems to be much more impactful this way and that's beacause out 200 or so booths at the show I am the only one. It's the contrast I need and it's hard not at all hard to stand out even in the crowded aisles. Could this be what all of these men and a handful of women have been looking for all along? Could this have been what they had been looking for but didn't even know it? Didn't know it existed even? Even my ripping through wood with a handsaw speaks louder than the thousand machines that switched on an hour ago. It will go until seven yet it could not drown out the simplicity of a tenon saw cutting a dovetail in a couple of minutes.

An audience makes a huge impact. they sit with me for forty minutes and then they won't leave their seats as they fire questions from all sides There are challenges being in an environment with pockets of hostility. The few there that take offence with my message seem intent to say things that might matter only to them. They're not looking for what I offer yet they insist on sitting thare and taking up the seats that might better suit the ones who can't get one. I can always diffuse the antogonists in a quick second with a very effective split-second demonstration. Cain't bet a random orbit sander though. I swipe off two shaving on a two foot length of oak three inches wide in a few seconds and pass it round. Twenty people run their fingertips over it and the other hundred around watch the smiles spread across their faces as they pass it on. Of course, it's not apples for apples. And I do use random orbit sanders too. But that's not why I am there. There is no competition for what I am offering.

So what am I offering? In many ways I began to see how a sort of dormancy had taken over the reasoning behind why so many started on their woodworking journey. They had become blind to the skills I just took for granted. My simple double dovetail joint levelled and smoothed to perfection with a very ordinary #4 Stanley somehow took of the blinkers (blinders USA) and this was the first time any of them had actually seen someone cut a dovetail joint with half a dozen basic hand tools.

The show owner, I've forgotten his name, stopped by the booth to inspect things on the last afternoon of the show, meandered through the exhibit and came to the bench. "This is a class act!" He said. From here on I'll give you free booth space if you'll just keep doing what you did this weekend. I never paid for a booth again. My three-booth set up would have cost me $1,500 or so. It was a lot for me in those days. I took him up on the offer and from that alone I filled my classes year round.

https://woodworkingmasterclasses.com/dashboard/

Common woodworking is another option. Here is that link too. This caters to anyone wanting to understand the basics so that they can launch off into deeper woodworking as a preset for developing the full mastery we promote through my blog and woodworking masterclasses. Additionally, for the past three years we have been building a houseful of hand made furniture. To do this we bought a house, emptied it, restructured the inside to bring everything up to date and then we built the furniture you might want for your home. Go to www.sellershome.com to catch up.

I'd be surprised if we don't reach a million people every month online now with the same message I started out with back in my first class which was in 1990. The message and the methods have never changed simply because they couldn't be improved on and the message remains the same. Did you know that back then the message spoke of how with around ten hand tools and three woodworking joints cut by hand you can make almost anything from wood. Join me above for ongoing opportunities to learn new skills you might never have believed possible. We will never bombard you but will occasionally nudge you to try some new thing I've come up with. I want you to have all the skills I have used over the last sixty years as a full-time maker. You will be proof of the efficacy of what I started in my first lessons 40 years ago when I started teaching kids classes for the local community. Nothing's changed. Why? It didn't need to.