Tom Lie Nielsen at the European Woodworking Show

The European woodworking show was a great success and I had some well known visitors to my stand. Here is Tom Lie Nielsen using one of my 9" smoothers.

Here's my jointing plane in full swing.

My high angle spokeshave being used to shape some rippled walnut.
Toms UK visit obviously had the desired effect as I saw plenty of people wandering around with Lie Nielsen boxes in their hands.

Now here's a man who knows a thing or two about using hand planes, bench maker Richard Maguire. His benches are hand made and hand planed and he is dedicated to the use of hand tools in both his bench making as well as his furniture. He had a number of benches on show but the real beauty was a bench of brown oak and I'll show this bench in action with a massive cornice plane on my next post. Richards website and blog are well worth visiting. http://www.rm-workbenches.co.uk/default.htm

David Charlesworth was on the Lie Nielsen stand, he's seen here demonstrating his edge jointing technique with his finger and thumb fence.

Despite Davids serious approach to the hallowed subject of hand planing he's caught here showing it can be good fun as well.

Next to me in the main hall was Windsor chair maker and teacher James Mursell demonstrating his travishers  and spokeshaves. I had a go with them myself and they performed impressively on this tulipwood slab. In fact once I started it was hard to stop!

Denab was demonstrating the range of of tools on the Lie Nielsen stand, he is a seasoned pro and takes everything in a very helpful, relaxed and skilful manor.

On the other side of me were the Veritas boys with a wide range of fine tools. This shot doesn't do them justice as the stand was very busy throughout the show. I tried their dovetail saws and they worked really well, the 20 TPI was particularly nice and very good value.
As usual I didn't get a chance to look round the show properly as it was so busy, which was a shame. My favourite non woodworking stall was the Chinese take away, lovely food, friendly service and good portions, what more could you ask!