Who was that guy?

[Gene Davis]

He's not posting lately, but a half dozen years back was a regular. Did exquisite work in his apartment, looked to be in Manhattan. Did some nice videos showing sawing and planing, particularly finish planing. Has the demeanor of a British butler.

He was an inspiration to me, the reason I searched for a bought an 1872 A. Matthiessen & Sons double-iron try plane.

[Jim Koepke]

It is clear of whom you speak but my brain often doesn't work with names.

All of a sudden Brian Holcombe popped in my head.

jtk

[Tom Vanzant]

Jim, like you, I saw him clearly but couldn’t recall his name. His shop was like a well-appointed living room, complete with carpet.

[Tom Vanzant]

Brian has been posting recently & frequently on the General Woodworking & Power Tools forum.

[Tony Shea]

I agree it seems like Brian Holcombe. I believe he has turned into a professional woodworker. As someone else noted he does post in the General Woodworking topic and is very machine orientated at this point. He still does his fair share of hand tool work but his machine work is also very interesting. His machines are as pristine as his hand tools and are set up to the accuracy level of a machinist. I do wish he would post more about his machine setup processes and more hand tool stuff but once you turn pro, time is money! Having said that, he does post his stuff on Instagram quite often.

[Joe A Faulkner]

I haven’t followed Brian’s work that closely over the years, but I’d venture to guess that much of his work continues to include a good deal of hand tool work. According to his web site he offers one on one classes on both western and Japanese hand plane set up along with other hand tool courses. Search for “BrianHolcombe wood worker” to find his web site. His posts here were often inspiring. As I recall, Japanese chisels and planes are areas of expertise and his work was always exceptional.

His site has a number of build threads, mostly 6-7 years old, that feature hand tool work. All executed to extremely high standards. Really great work.

[Jack Dover]

It is clear of whom you speak but my brain often doesn't work with names.

All of a sudden Brian Holcombe popped in my head.


Brian is somewhere deep in NJ though - I think you can still summon him here from the machines forum. He's also a Japanese tools user, I think it's very unlikely that Japanese tools might inspire buying an 1872 A. Matthiessen & Sons double-iron try plane.