Woodworking People

Woodworking People

One of the things I really like about the tool industry is the people in it.

When we hire people from another industry, they invariably remark on just how nice the people are in our industry.

I went to the AWFS show a couple weeks ago and met some of our suppliers, some of our customers and just some new people. You could walk up to a booth and odds are pretty good that standing in that booth would be the owner of the company.  He would shake your hand, listen to you very politely and give you all the time you needed.

I was at a show a couple years ago and “Norm” was doing the same thing. He was in a big machinery company booth and he had a long line waiting to talk to him but he was still very gracious and listened to everyone who wanted to talk to him.

We just had a guy come in to sell us a couple coffee cans of scrap carbide. This guy looked like a real executive and he was very polite. Even when he was standing there with the can of carbide scrap in each arm and the fool dog was barking at him because the fool dog wanted to play.  After he left I saw his name on the paperwork.   This guy has a very successful manufacturing plant locally.

John English sent me an e-mail today asking if I had any information on carbide grades that he could use in a new book.  I like woodworking but my stuff isn’t real pretty.  Few years ago John sent me a picture of an absolutely gorgeous hutch he had just finished.  He asked me what I was working on and I told him I spent the weekend driving ten-penny nails into a set of steps to help out an old widow. That story pretty well illustrates the difference in skill levels between John English and I.

To show you how classy John is here is the message you sent me in reply after I sent him some carbide grade info.

”Hi Tom,

Nice to hear from you, too. Hope all is well?

Many, many thanks for your help. I’ll work Carbide Processors into the book.

I run the Black Hills School of Woodworking in Belle Fourche, SD nowadays and live in nearby Spearfish.

We have half a million motorcyclists here for the Sturgis Rally and the shop walls are literally reverberating.

I’ll send you a copy of the book when it comes out in the spring.

Regards,

John

John English

Black Hills School of Woodworking

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