Ron Brese
03-20-2007, 9:29 PM
The Brese's and the Rowe's in Russellville
Julie and I were visiting Russellville Arkansas this past weekend. Our trip had three objectives. The first was to deliver an 18" Woodmaster Planer that I had sold to a gentleman from Eastern Oklahoma. Russellville was decided as the meeting place for this transfer of machinery because of the second objective which was a visit with Julie's Uncle Fred and his wife Shirley. The third objective and the one that this thread is about was a Creeker Visit with Steve and Donna Rowe.
After making the machinery exchange on Saturday, we headed over to the shop and home of Steve and Donna Rowe. I had picked up on a thread reply from Steve that mentioned a Felder combination machine with sliding table in his shop. This attracted my interest because I had never had the opportunity to look at one of these machines in a home shop and ask questions of a person that was a machine user and not a salesman.
We were welcomed by Steve and Donna so warmly that I believe a bystander would have thought we were old friends. I'm proud to say that they are now "new friends that seem like old friends."
When people meet and they have the common ground of woodworking there is always a lot to talk about, what we found was that we had a lot more in common than woodworking.
To say that Steve's shop houses an impressive array of machinery and hand tools would be a gross understatement. This was the most impressive home shop I've ever seen. Not only does he have a complete shop, he has industrial quality tools of the type that are usually only seen in professional shops. In addition Steve's shop is well orgainzed and has room for "work in process" as well as space for tools.
It's seems that the Felder combination machine is the heart of his shop and he answered all my questions about this machine with the expertise only an experienced user could possess.
My contribution to the visit was to allow Steve to test drive my recently completed infill planes. I think these planes work quite well, but I need the feedback of other woodworkers in order to make final changes prior to putting these planes into production. One of the planes I brought was the small smoother that I had posted progress pics of recently. This plane is in the late stages of development and is ready for production. The other plane that I brought was an early stage prototype of a full size smoother.
We put these planes thru their paces on a piece of walnut with all the typically hard to plane charateristics. It has a sizable knot in one side that creates switch back grain on the other side of the board and caused the grain to change direction when it comes thru the edge of the board also.
You will notice in the picture that does not contain any people that we even planed the area around the knot smooth.
As we tired of ruining a pefectly good piece of walnut by turning it into sub one thousanth ribbons of wood, we started into conversation about things other than woodworking. Children (all grown on both sides), other hobbies, jobs, among many things.
Before we knew it the afternoon had escaped us. We saw an impressive shop and in their home some impressive furniture pieces made by Steve, and some beautiful quilts made by Donna Rowe. We've made plans for a future meeting in Georgia, Julie and I are already looking forward to it.
Hope you enjoy the pics,
Ron Brese
Picture legend: Steve is in the lighter colored shirt, I'm the other guy.
Julie and I were visiting Russellville Arkansas this past weekend. Our trip had three objectives. The first was to deliver an 18" Woodmaster Planer that I had sold to a gentleman from Eastern Oklahoma. Russellville was decided as the meeting place for this transfer of machinery because of the second objective which was a visit with Julie's Uncle Fred and his wife Shirley. The third objective and the one that this thread is about was a Creeker Visit with Steve and Donna Rowe.
After making the machinery exchange on Saturday, we headed over to the shop and home of Steve and Donna Rowe. I had picked up on a thread reply from Steve that mentioned a Felder combination machine with sliding table in his shop. This attracted my interest because I had never had the opportunity to look at one of these machines in a home shop and ask questions of a person that was a machine user and not a salesman.
We were welcomed by Steve and Donna so warmly that I believe a bystander would have thought we were old friends. I'm proud to say that they are now "new friends that seem like old friends."
When people meet and they have the common ground of woodworking there is always a lot to talk about, what we found was that we had a lot more in common than woodworking.
To say that Steve's shop houses an impressive array of machinery and hand tools would be a gross understatement. This was the most impressive home shop I've ever seen. Not only does he have a complete shop, he has industrial quality tools of the type that are usually only seen in professional shops. In addition Steve's shop is well orgainzed and has room for "work in process" as well as space for tools.
It's seems that the Felder combination machine is the heart of his shop and he answered all my questions about this machine with the expertise only an experienced user could possess.
My contribution to the visit was to allow Steve to test drive my recently completed infill planes. I think these planes work quite well, but I need the feedback of other woodworkers in order to make final changes prior to putting these planes into production. One of the planes I brought was the small smoother that I had posted progress pics of recently. This plane is in the late stages of development and is ready for production. The other plane that I brought was an early stage prototype of a full size smoother.
We put these planes thru their paces on a piece of walnut with all the typically hard to plane charateristics. It has a sizable knot in one side that creates switch back grain on the other side of the board and caused the grain to change direction when it comes thru the edge of the board also.
You will notice in the picture that does not contain any people that we even planed the area around the knot smooth.
As we tired of ruining a pefectly good piece of walnut by turning it into sub one thousanth ribbons of wood, we started into conversation about things other than woodworking. Children (all grown on both sides), other hobbies, jobs, among many things.
Before we knew it the afternoon had escaped us. We saw an impressive shop and in their home some impressive furniture pieces made by Steve, and some beautiful quilts made by Donna Rowe. We've made plans for a future meeting in Georgia, Julie and I are already looking forward to it.
Hope you enjoy the pics,
Ron Brese
Picture legend: Steve is in the lighter colored shirt, I'm the other guy.