Report From WIA – Definitely NOT One Yardstick To Rule Them All

Although I did my part in keeping the woodworking economy alive at the WIA Marketplace, my acquisitions were actually pretty modest and there was no impulse buying.  I had a strategic mission and fulfilled it.  That is not to say that I did not have fun browsing and chatting, and even in the buying itself.

Nowhere was this more true than visiting with (and purchasing from) Brendan Gaffney, trained as a Krenovian furniture maker at College of the Redwoods who finds himself hurtling down an unexpected path as the creator and purveyor of historical rulers and measuring sticks.  As an art class project Brendan created first one, then another, and finally a broad group of measuring sticks based on Roman, Egyptian, Japanese and French precedents, and for all I know may be working on Chinese, Aztec, Atlantian, Maori, and Klingon models as well, along with exquisite sectors.

Given my immersion in all things Roubo I was of course morally obliged to purchase the rulers that would have been used in the ateliers of 18th century France.  I am now the proud owner of a French Royal Foot ruler and a six-foot Fathom.  Should I ever need to replicate a Roubo exercise precisely I am all set.

I found the Egyptian Ruler to be the most fascinating of all due to is subdivisions.  In the twelve-inch foot, the first inch is whole, the second inch divided into two parts, the third inch into thirds, and so on.  This practice is sheer genius.  No wonder the Egyptians were such effective collaborators with the space aliens when they built the pyramids.

I wonder if Brendan will find himself holding a tiger by the tail as I am with polissoirs as my first batch of two dozen, which I thought was all I would ever order from my broom-maker friend, has morphed into orders totaling more than  two hundred dozen.  Good luck, Brendan.