Robert works by hand. Not as a philosophy or an aesthetic statement, but as the practical outcome of working in a 200-year-old stone building on his family’s property that has no electrical service and no plans to get any. The building is on the state historic register and modifications are limited. Electrical conduit is not going in. What goes in are hand tools, a good workbench, and the practices that 200 years of craftsmen used in buildings like this one.
The shop has three sources of light: two original windows on the south wall (which provide excellent morning light), a north-facing skylight cut into the stone ceiling by Robert’s grandfather in the 1940s (which provides even, consistent afternoon light), and a collection of oil lamps for early morning and evening work sessions. The oil lamps are period-accurate but not chosen for aesthetics – they’re chosen because they work and because they’re the practical option. “People romanticize working by lamplight,” Robert says. “I do it because I want to finish the chair before dinner. Not because it’s charming.”
The tool collection is eclectic and deep: 30 hand planes spanning 150 years of manufacture, a complete set of chisels in every width from 1/8 to 2 inches, hand saws in six tooth configurations, bow saws, frame saws, a brace-and-bit collection, scrapers, spokeshaves, and a drawknife that is his single favorite tool in the shop. The bench is a Roubo that Robert built from white oak he milled himself from a tree that fell on the property in 2015.
The work is Windsor chairs and Windsor-adjacent seating – a traditional form that has been made entirely by hand since its development in the early 18th century and that, Robert argues, cannot be meaningfully improved by machine production. “Every Windsor chair that’s been made by machine since the 1850s is worse than every Windsor chair made by hand before it,” he says. This is a strong claim. His chairs make it plausible. Are you doing hand-tool-only work? Share your practice and your shop.