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Some of my favorite tools came from the hands of Kevin Drake, the founder of Glen-Drake Toolworks in Ft. Bragg, Calif.
Anyone who has been in our shop for more than 30 seconds knows my affection for the Tite-Mark cutting gauge. It is, hands down, without equal. And I wouldn’t want to work wood without it. (You can download a pdf of my 2005 Endurance Test of this tool using the link below.)
TiteMarkENDTEST.pdf (121.29 KB)
But Drake makes other extraordinary tools. His chisel hammers are excellent (I use the No. 3 size). His plane-adjusting hammer is on the rack in my shop at home and taps every plane iron into position in my work.
Lately Drake has been developing a line of tools that help with dovetailing, including a scraper-like tool that starts your saw kerf, and a new dovetail saw with two handles. We’ve been itching to bring Drake to our shop for a hand-on workshop and now we have finally arranged a free evening workshop for readers at 6 p.m. on May 8 in our shop in Cincinnati.
If you’ve never been to these events, they’re a tremendous amount of fun. We serve you dinner, and then Drake will demonstrate his new saw (and other tools). Then you’ll have an opportunity to use the tools in our shop and ask all the questions you like. And if you hang around late enough, we usually end up all going out for a beer afterward.
Right now we have about 10 spots still open for the workshop. If you want to attend, please send an e-mail to Megan Fitzpatrick at megan.fitzpatrick@fwpubs.com to reserve a spot.
I’ve known Drake for many years and he is both an accomplished woodworker and toolmaker. After a career as a musician, Drake attended the College of the Redwoods under James Krenov. He’s a fascinating and thoughtful guy, and I’m certain he’s going to put on an excellent show. Hope to see you there.
Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.
