Weekend in New England…………..T-Chisel style!!!!


Only in Boston with Tommy and his very important “grasshopper”: Eli Cleveland, can you walk away and in my case without a dovetail that fit and a step stool 3 inches less in width and still have an extraordinary woodworking experience.

It didn’t just start at the shop (aka: “my house”) in Canton, MA, but in my kitchen at 7:30 am when I met Justin (aka: JD) for first time. He hadn’t slept but was buzzed with woodworking. We packed up my van, hopped the ferry across the Long Island Sound and entered New England.

Along the way we called Chuck to bring him along for a bit of the ride. After all we entered WalnutBeagle’s territory of Providence RI. The entire drive Justin and I talked all forms of woodworking and did a lot of laughing. By the way Justin hadn’t slept because over the past week he had been final building and preparing his first application into a juried show to take place in October. He spent Thursday into Friday dimensioning the step stool lumber for me and him. He liked the cherry and demoted me to walnut. Not a bad demotion.

We caught up with Tommy at his shop, and he’s exactly who you want him to be.

T-Chiz drove and we headed to the NBSS where we caught up with Eli (aka: Quantum) who gave Justin and I each an individual tour of his bench area and other classrooms. Meanwhile, Mayor MacDonald worked not just the room……the school. When our visit was over, we met Directors, Deans, Instructors, students, Policemen, Crossing Guards, and bus driver’s…..Bob was his name and was a bit on the grumpy side.

From NBSS with Eli now with us, we went back to the T-Chisel Shop finished up the benches and grabbed some Thi food that was “great”. Of course by the time we left we were on first name basis with the owner who made a point to introduce himself to Tommy’s friends.

JD and I crashed at a Sheraton, an easy 12 minutes from the shop and got ready for the show to begin.

Saturday…….Day 1

We met Brian and 2 NBSS guys: Mike and Jeff

The first thing you learn in Chisels House is you’re better off just listening and accepting the help, that help may not be needed at that moment, but eventually you’ll need the offered help…..my recommendation…….use the help. Boys……….nobody is off limits and when the Chisel barbs start, the griddle gets hot, a little hotter,…. it gets fun, it gets to a lot of laughing and makes woodworking a wonderful experience.

We all chop-chopped in the morning and that afternoon headed to John Adams home. Mayor MacDonald arranged the tour. As Brian who lives in the area put it, “I would never come here, but that was a good idea”. The best part was watching Tommy become so passionate about the furnishings. We saw Federal, and Empire and Queen Anne and in each room Mayor MacDonald would guide our guide deeper into the history, until we got to the cabinet with commode……..our guide left the discussion of that piece to the Mayor and he did not disappoint in his descriptive dimensionality. A nice intro for Gary a forum member who we all met at the Adams home.

When we were through with Adams and almost left Eli in Boston, it was back to the shop for more chop-chop, more fun, dinner together that evening…..then back to the shop until 10 that evening. Man……….it was pure woodworking fun.

Sunday Day 2

Of course we had our antics of sweeping all the shaving around Brian’s bench and since Eli wasn’t there yet, we blamed him on Brian’s arrival.

More chop-chop, a lot of barbs flying. Tommy rides you to get better performance and the time just goes to darn fast.

The highlight for me was meeting and spending time with Justin who has unlimited potential, complete with woodworking dreams; seeing what a good man Eli is, watching Tommy ride Brian only to hear Tommy say as we were ending our stay, “Brian you did your best work this weekend”.

Spending time with Big-T is special.

As we all left his shop I know I was not the only one pumped and thinking………..

“Who’s better than me”

Neil (aka: Gorilla)

weekend experience