Matt Meiser
07-27-2009, 8:26 AM
We returned home from our 10-day New England vacation yesterday. A lot of driving but a lot of fun as well, except for Thursday night/Friday morning's noreaster. I did the final packing and hookup of the camper in that (we heard and planned ahead to minimize what I had to do) and drove from Freeport, ME to Boston in very heavy rain. Would have made it further in the rain if someone hadn't scattered their hot air balloon trailer and its contents across I-495. While we were sitting the rain pretty much stopped for a while.
We made a lot of woodworking related stops. Last Saturday we went to Norm's favorite, Old Sturbridge Village which was enjoyable. Sunday on the way to Bar Harbor we stopped at the Fairfield Antique Mall near Fairfield, ME recommend Walter Plummer. I picked up a nice 6" combination square there. Then Monday before going on a wildlife cruise in Frenchman's Bay we stopped at the Hulls Cove Tool Barn which Walt also recommended. At Hulls Cove I found a nice low angle Stanley block plane. Not cheap, but it was in nice shape and I was able to inspect it. After the cruise we did some wandering in Bar Habor before driving around Acadia and heading to the top of Cadillac Mountain.
On Wednesday moning we packed up early and headed down to Freeport. Along the way we stopped in Liberty for the Liberty Tool Company (interesting, but I didn't find anything that interested me enough to bring it home.) From there we went to Warren and stopped at Lie-Nielson where we played with a number of handplanes in the showroom and Andrew took us on a tour of the "factory". If you ever get a chance to tour, go--and you'll understand exactly why a Lie-Nielsen tool costs what it does. They have several CNC machining centers, but the majority of the work is done on the kinds of machine tools that you'd find in any machine shop across the country. They are then hand-assembled, hand-inspected, and hand-packaged. And they use foundries in Maine (cast-iron) and New Hampshire (bronze.) One thing I found interesting/ironic was the number of Grizzly drill presses employed. It appeared that they had one for every operation with proper fixturing to align the part. There are some others mixed in but by far the majority were green.
Thursday morning we had an appointment for what was probably my favorite thing about the trip--a tour of Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers in Auburn, ME. We were given a very thorought tour of their process. Again, they own a CNC router, but the majority of the work is performed on the same tools most of us have in our shops. There were numerous table saws of various manufacture, probably 20 or 30 14" bandsaws and a number of large jointers. I also saw one craftsman trimming tenons with a Veritas shoulder plane. I did not see a single Festool tool (most all their sanding is done with air tools or by hand.) Again, interestingly, there were a lot of Grizzly machines. The actual manufacturing is broken down in departments based on the type of furniture--beds, chairs, tables, etc. Each has a shop area with the tools appropriate for that job. There's also a custom work area, and there's a prototype shop which looks exactly like any well-equipped shop you could find here. Again, after the tour it was easy to see why Thos. Moser furnitures sells for what it does, from the incredible stock they start with to the amount of detail that goes into its construction and finishing, to the care with which they pack and ship it. Not to mention the name. And no, I didn't bring anything home from there.
Friday we started heading home in a marathon drive from Maine to Ohio. We made a stop along the way at Grizzly in Pennsylvania, but other than a catalog I left empty handed, though I did fondle an edge sander a number of times. Unless I find a used one first I think it is eventually going to end up in my shop. We ended up near Hartville, OH for the night so that we could go to the flea market, and of course Hartville Hardware on Saturday before coming home Sunday.
We made a lot of woodworking related stops. Last Saturday we went to Norm's favorite, Old Sturbridge Village which was enjoyable. Sunday on the way to Bar Harbor we stopped at the Fairfield Antique Mall near Fairfield, ME recommend Walter Plummer. I picked up a nice 6" combination square there. Then Monday before going on a wildlife cruise in Frenchman's Bay we stopped at the Hulls Cove Tool Barn which Walt also recommended. At Hulls Cove I found a nice low angle Stanley block plane. Not cheap, but it was in nice shape and I was able to inspect it. After the cruise we did some wandering in Bar Habor before driving around Acadia and heading to the top of Cadillac Mountain.
On Wednesday moning we packed up early and headed down to Freeport. Along the way we stopped in Liberty for the Liberty Tool Company (interesting, but I didn't find anything that interested me enough to bring it home.) From there we went to Warren and stopped at Lie-Nielson where we played with a number of handplanes in the showroom and Andrew took us on a tour of the "factory". If you ever get a chance to tour, go--and you'll understand exactly why a Lie-Nielsen tool costs what it does. They have several CNC machining centers, but the majority of the work is done on the kinds of machine tools that you'd find in any machine shop across the country. They are then hand-assembled, hand-inspected, and hand-packaged. And they use foundries in Maine (cast-iron) and New Hampshire (bronze.) One thing I found interesting/ironic was the number of Grizzly drill presses employed. It appeared that they had one for every operation with proper fixturing to align the part. There are some others mixed in but by far the majority were green.
Thursday morning we had an appointment for what was probably my favorite thing about the trip--a tour of Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers in Auburn, ME. We were given a very thorought tour of their process. Again, they own a CNC router, but the majority of the work is performed on the same tools most of us have in our shops. There were numerous table saws of various manufacture, probably 20 or 30 14" bandsaws and a number of large jointers. I also saw one craftsman trimming tenons with a Veritas shoulder plane. I did not see a single Festool tool (most all their sanding is done with air tools or by hand.) Again, interestingly, there were a lot of Grizzly machines. The actual manufacturing is broken down in departments based on the type of furniture--beds, chairs, tables, etc. Each has a shop area with the tools appropriate for that job. There's also a custom work area, and there's a prototype shop which looks exactly like any well-equipped shop you could find here. Again, after the tour it was easy to see why Thos. Moser furnitures sells for what it does, from the incredible stock they start with to the amount of detail that goes into its construction and finishing, to the care with which they pack and ship it. Not to mention the name. And no, I didn't bring anything home from there.
Friday we started heading home in a marathon drive from Maine to Ohio. We made a stop along the way at Grizzly in Pennsylvania, but other than a catalog I left empty handed, though I did fondle an edge sander a number of times. Unless I find a used one first I think it is eventually going to end up in my shop. We ended up near Hartville, OH for the night so that we could go to the flea market, and of course Hartville Hardware on Saturday before coming home Sunday.