MWCTA Regional Meeting

On Saturday we drove to Virgilina, Virginia (so named because it is astride the Virginia-North Carolina border) and attended the Regional Chapter meeting of the Mid-West Tool Collector’s Association.

As is the usual regimen at such events the orders of business were 1) tool hawking and swapping, and 2) a presentation by a guest speaker.  On the first point I managed to buy only one tool, a nicely fashioned mahogany chamfering plane, a form I had long wanted to add to my kit as I have a series of tables and cabinets that will require one.

As to the second point, Virgilina resident Barry Thompson presented the tool kit he uses for making Windsor chairs, of which he has fabricated and sold about 1,500 over the past twenty years or so.  Barry is an affable, no-nonsense sorta guy who emphasized the nature and pace of work when what happens at the bench is how you derive your income.

I was very much impressed with Barry’s talk, ans look forward to learning more about his work.  While lunch was getting ready we chatted at great length about tools and chairmaking.

If you have any interest in tools of all sorts, and if you are reading this I would guess that you are, make sure to join and participate in the meetings of MWTCA.