This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending a one day hand-cut dovetails class with Erie Conover at his shop in Ohio.
The class was excellent, and I met some interesting people. I will take more classes from Ernie in the future. He has a great classroom/shop with a teacher’s bench for him and 8 full benches for the students (one each). Lots of natural light. A great environment.
His website is here: http://www.conoverworkshops.com/
I will post more later about the class, but one of the side-items that I took away from the class is that I REALLY liked using a workbench with a tool tray after-all (or hamster run as Chris Schwarz calls it). I’ve never worked for any period of time on a bench with a tray, and I had no intention of building one into my workbench project…but now I am reconsidering. Having a place to put my tools where they will not roll onto the floor was very nice.
If I do install one in the bench, it will have a removable bottom. At the end of only one day of class at Ernie’s, mine was full of shavings. So, Chris was right…but it may be worth it anyway.
By the way, Ernie let slip that he is in the final stages of writing a book on dovetails (including the history of their use and styles). He says that it may be out by late 2008 or early 2009.
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About mattsanf
Matt Sanfilippo is the Chief Partnership Officer (CPO) for the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Co-Director of its Engineering Research Accelerator. In this role, Matt coordinates and enables strategic and sponsored research opportunities across the college, and stewards the development of proposals for major research opportunities along strategic themes. Additionally, he enables collaboration among the college's research institute/center executive directors, and industrial and government relations personnel in the pursuit of opportunities with industry, federal and state governments. Before becoming CPO for the College, Matt was the Senior Executive Director for Research Initiatives, the Executive Director of CMU's SII (Smart Infrastructure Institute) and ICES (Institute for Complex Engineered Systems), and Associate Director of PITA (Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance) and RAMP (Research for Advanced Manufacturing in Pennsylvania).
Before CMU, Matt was Managing Director of Applied Technology for Michael Baker Corporation, an engineering and energy services firm. Matt managed Baker's technology division including Geographic Information System (GIS), software and web development, multimedia, virtual reality, visualization, Global Positioning System (GPS), mapping and surveying services. Before joining Baker, Matt was an Innovation Director for Redleaf Group, a Venture Capital/Operating Company focused on information security, supply chain and mobility solutions. While at Redleaf, Matt managed technical due diligence for seed-stage investments and coordinated relationships between Redleaf and their partner companies. Prior to Redleaf, Matt was CIO of GZA GeoEnvironmental Technologies, an infrastructure engineering firm, and operations manager for their Internet start-up that focused on web-technologies for health and safety and manufacturing metrics.
Matt is on the board of Larson Design Group (LDG), past Chairman of the Board for the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, current board member of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PHLF), current Vice President of the Sewickley Heights Gun Club (SHGC) and former member of the Information Sciences and Technology Advisory Board for the Pennsylvania State University Beaver. Matt is also former Vice President of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Association of Internet Professionals and former Vice President of the Board of Trustees for Baker Combined Charity of Pennsylvania.
A Learning Adventure in the Workshop 