Day three...

I'm getting ready for day three of box making at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine and students already have a variety of boxes in the works. We finished the box joint workstation yesterday so students can just step up and make perfect box joints and some of them plan to make the dedicated router set-up to take with and use at home. The article about this device comes out in the next issue of American Woodworker, and the idea is that making box joints can be done accurately at the drop of a hat. This is Maine, after all, and while here, I have no choice but to soothe my interests in wooden boats. They are one of the best repositories of hands-acquired intellect, and boatmakers understand the Wisdom of the Hands long before nary a word has ever been said. I had found a small sloop in Wooden Boat Magazine that turned out to be at a small boatyard, Malone's, right down the street from the school. It was made by Ferdinand "Red" Nimphius in Wisconsin of all unusual places, but Nimphius had a sterling reputation as a boat maker, even by Maine standards.

While the small boat was in storage for nearly 20 years,(which accounts for it's excellent condition) its BMW single cylinder diesel started right up. Here in Rockport you can drive along through neighborhoods and find boat works large and small in unexpected places. This place could serve as an example of how hands-derived intellect might be reinstilled throughout our American culture. Make, fix, and create...