Andy Chidwick is a good friend and fellow furniture maker. He & his family are currently travelling with The Woodworking Shows. As he travels the country, going from show to show, he is stopping to visit woodworkers along the way and recording interviews. He calls this The Sawdust Tour.

Since Andy lives in western Montana, and had to travel due east to Baltimore for the first show, he had to pass through Billings. I was honored to have him make the American Craftsman Workshop his first stop on the Sawdust Tour.

In this video we talk a little bit about my current projects and how I function in the shop. There are some gold nuggets of information on shop workflow and a peek into my life as a pro woodworker.

While Andy does the interviews, is son Tano is acting as videographer. The endeavor is truly a family event.

Andy will be at The Woodworking Shows giving seminars and demonstrations on woodworking. To see if there is a show near you be sure to check out The Woodworking Show Schedule.

Not only will you be able to see and meet Andy Chidwick, but some other great names in woodworking will be there: Roland Johnson,Jim Heavey, and Bradley McCalister will also be giving seminars. Their names are hotlinks so you can see their profile on The Woodworking Shows site.

Follow Andy on:

FaceBook - Andy Chidwick

Twitter - @chidwicshool

Sawdusttour.com

Well, I gotta head back out to the shop to make some sawdust so I can clean it up...you gotta watch the video to get it;)

Your friend in the shop,

Todd A. Clippinger

Share the Love-Share the Knowledge

Hey guys!

As usual, the summer season is the busiest for my remodeling work and it takes me away from my passion of sharing with the woodworking community. But I will take what I can get so the good news is that I am still at it.

The latest issue of WOOD Magazine has just hit the bookstores and mailboxes and I was lucky enough to get a full page of coverage! The article gives tips from 4 small pro shops and mine was one of the shops covered.

While there is a lot more wisdom and experience we could each share, they picked a few tips from each shop to give a good cross section of helpful advice for the wide variety of woodworkers out there.

To see the tips from my shop, check out page 48!

Photography Credits go to my friend's daughter Yasmine Morup. She is a junior in high school and has an interest in photography. I gave her a call so she could get in on the action and get published. She and her family are pretty excited to see her work published and distributed internationally. Thanks for a great job Yaz!

(WOOD Magazine gave me their full blessing to use any images of their magazine.)

A Visit to WOOD Magazine Headquarters

I just returned from doing some work in Ohio for my mom, she has had some health issues so we are turning her house into single floor living. My normal route between Montana and Ohio takes me through Des Moines, Iowa.

This happens to be where Meredith Publishing is located, and this is the headquarters for WOOD Magazine. So I had to stop in for a visit to meet the editors.

I had a great visit with everyone and got a tour of the facilities. They gave me a peak into the shop where the projects are developed for each issue of WOOD Magazine and of the studio shop where the step-by-step woodworking projects are photographed for the articles.

Since this is the headquarters for several Meredith publications, there is an area that is like a storage warehouse for movie sets, except that it is all for setting up scenes for the various magazines. This services all of the magazines with the backdrop sets that they might need.

The Woodworker's Dream Job?

One thing that had never occurred to me, are the opportunities that a woodworker or carpenter might have with a company like Meredith. Somebody has to build, modify, and disassemble sets constantly. They have a couple guys that do this everyday for the various magazines under the Meredith roof. They have a dedicated shop just for these guys located between the warehoused set pieces and the stage area where the scenes are constructed for the photo shoots.

A real dream job could be designing and building the projects for WOOD Magazine. There are a couple of furniture makers that focus solely on creating the projects for each issue. How cool would that be?

Some Sweet Projects!

One other great thing, was getting to visit the WOOD Magazine gallery. It is an area that they keep most of the projects that are designed for the magazine. I recognized many of the projects from past issues. And just like with my work, the photos do not give justice compared to seeing the projects in person.

I will say that my favorite projects are the 2 most recent ones. They are the pub table and chairs on the cover of this issue, and the Asian inspired media end table that will be featured in the next issue. The pub table is found on page 50 and the media end table is inside the back cover on page 84 giving a peak at what's in the next issue. I felt these were projects that would have come right out of my shop.

They Genuinely Love Woodworking

One thing that impressed me was that the guys all have a genuine interest in woodworking. The consensus among the editors was that they would like to write less about woodworking and spend more time in their shops, and they ALL have shops at home.

They even pointed out that, although it is not a requirement for an employee of WOOD Magazine to be a woodworker, even the secretaries and assistant staff members have woodworking shops at home.

That is all for now. I have more big news to share but this is enough for one sitting, I have a lot to do in the shop.

Until next time - be safe in your own shop!

Todd A. Clippinger

Share the Love~Share the Knowledge