A slight change in the teaching Plan

This week, I'm in Bavaria to teach two classes of wood workshops for Dictum GmbH. (and to visit my coffeemaker favorite worldwide.)

However, instead of pushing the buttons on the machine again and again, I am teaching in a different shop and make friends with a machine to different coffee.

Due to heavy rains and flooding in Eastern Bavaria, the Dictum apart from Deggendorf to Neideralteicht workshop was almost completely ruined. Waters of the swollen Danube filled workshop almost to its limit.

The good news is that Dictum employees saved most of the machines and well-stocked shop tools (and that the store is being rebuilt). The bad news is that shop is a wreck at the moment.

So instead of teaching in the bucolic German countryside, I teach in Munich City Centre in a Dictum workshop attached to the new company retail store. This store is smaller than that of Eastern Bavaria. But it is attached to a store very large tool, which is heady - perhaps the largest shop hand tool I've never been in.

Today, I taught the first day of a class on the construction of a bowsaw to 12 students and we stumble and sweated on them all day, but it's productive. Almost all students build their bowsaws entirely by hand (except for a small turning on an electric Tower). And it was amazing to be reminded, that can be done with just a few tools, a small bench area and a new coffee machine.

I drew the class or a matter of a day. However, I had not been close enough attention to the calendar. It was supposed to be a two-day class. Thus, we were able to cover certain parts more than the tool in detail or explore other areas. Instead of a handle which is a tapered Octagon, we have time to turn the handle and front knob. For many of these students, this is their first or second time to turn. It's fun.

And the pace is a little slower than usual. I mean by "usual" 'completely mad '.

Perhaps I plan classes more like that. It is nice to have time for a cup of coffee.

Speaking of which, I do not know if the Munich coffee machine will never replace that I love in the classroom at the monastery, but I'll try hard to be a stoic here in the small village of Munich (and to avoid that the eye on Turkish coffee in the street).

-Christopher Schwarz

If you are interested in toolmaking, I recommend excellent book of John Wilson 'Woodworking tools.' Its tools are not valuable. They are designed to work very well and to be simple to build with typical carpentry tools.

Chris is a contributing editor to the popular magazine of carpentry and the Publisher to Lost Art Press. It is a passion for hand-tool (although it uses power tools, too).

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