Ever since I started this website, I've had occassional questions about my shop. Compared to backyard builders, I've had it much easier. I design and built custom furniture professionally and there was enough room at my shop for the boat. So, on the one hand, I've had access to a pretty well equipped shop. On the other, working on Goldberry was a bit of a busman's holiday. If you'd like to see some of my other work, please click here. Now, on to the shop.

My best tool, my bench. It's 8.5 feet long, 30" wide, and I can stand on either end and jump up and down and it doesn't move. The room was just long enough that I could shape my mast on in. It has the traditional tail and shoulder vices, arranged for my left handedness. Building a bench is a great project in itself and results in a tool that will serve you the rest of your woodworking days. I'm very glad I made mine huge since I often have two or things going at once. In this photo the clamp-up is a blank for my first attempt at segmented bowl turning. And in the middle of the bench are three bokken (Japanese wooden swords) in the shop for a bit of sanding and oiling (my wife Tara and I have been studying the Japanese martial art Aikido for a long, long time. If you'd like to virtually visit our little dojo, please click here.).

I use power tools all the time, but well tuned hand tools are often the best solution to many problems. They are right at hand, quick to use, and require no complicated setups. On the wall are two Lie-Nielson planes (low angle block and low angle jack) and a Lee Valley/Veritas scraper plane. All the rest of the planes are restored antiques and they all work wonderfully well. For the money, my best plane is a WWII era Stanley #4 smoothing plane - it was $5 from the Tool Barn in Hulls Cove, Maine. I also have a set of bench chisels, a few specialty chisels, and various measuring and marking tools on the wall. Most everything there got used at one time or another but for boatbuilding, an absolutely minimum set would be a set of chisels, a block plane, and a good spokeshave. The spline ducks over on the left were a lucky EBay find and highly useful.

Clamps. I don't have enough, and never will! The pipe clamps are more useful for furniture, but at one time or another they were all on the boat, sometimes all at once. Before I tackled another boat project, I'd search bargin bins for another 20-30 C-clamps.

And even more clamps. The speed clamps were great at holding slippery parts together when I was doing challenging glue-ups and the epoxy was going everywhere.

It's not a shipsaw by any means, but this little 14" JET bandsaw has been a trooper. It could have better guide block assemblies, but then it could have cost more as well. If I could only have one stationary saw for boatbuilding, it would be a bandsaw. Except for the planking, I think I made every single part on the boat with this machine.

Okay, this ins't exactly a professional grade machine. But for 200 bucks, I got an oscillating belt sander that I just can't kill. For fairing curves efficiently on small boat or furniture parts, this thing can't be beat. Bigger machines have more capacity, planes and spokeshaves are quiet and elegant, but this machine gets the job done and fast. I buy belts from Klingspor - with their 'bargin box of belts' deal, they belts are $1/each. Out of all the machines in the shop, this little sander probably delivers the most bang for the buck.

Our little Delta drill press. It was even cheaper than the Rigid sander and has proven to be all the drill press I need for building the boat and building furniture. About once a year I wish I had a floor model with more capacity, but the rest of the time I'm content with this little fellow. A drill press is the kind of tool that before owning one you really can't see the need and after having one for awhile have no idea how you could do without it.

We have a bench in our shop that came out of an old patternmaker's shop and it is complete with this wonderful antique Emmert vice. I don't think I used it much for building Goldberry, but I had to show it off.

A 'portable' Delta thickness planer. This machine lives out on our covered deck. We built this stand with a continuous infeed/outfeed table (an 8' long piece of melamine coated particle board). I would like to get a more industrial machine with a spiral cutterhead, variable speed, etc., but I can't kill this thing! I mill most of my wood on site, including all of the lumber for Goldberry. Most of the wood on the boat is not the standard 3/4" thick so the planer was invaluable.

My most fearsome beast - a 16" jointer. This monster was made in the late 19th century and was probably first driven by a steam powered lineshaft. Under the guard is a very modern spiral cutterhead, though and it makes VERY smooth boards. A big jointer like this isn't really necessary for a boat project, though, since all the wood on a boat curves in two or three dimensions.

My modest Delta lathe. It dates from the 1950s. While it lacks all the modern bells and whistles, it is a solid machine and I am very pleased to have it. I don't think there is a single turned piece of wood on Goldberry, but the lathe area is part of the shop tour.