Friday 29 May 2015

Visit to The Netherlands.


We've just returned from a weeks cycling in The Netherlands. The only major woodworking tool supplier in this small country (16 million people) is Baptist, based in the centre of Arnham.
I spotted this huge chair before I saw the store, it was outside a cabinet making shop nearby.


It was a large and very well stocked showroom with mainly hand tools, the machinery showroom was down the street. This weekend I was told they were moving into a much larger industrial unit where they could have a big demonstration area as well. I wish them luck with the move.
Below is just half of the wall of carving chisels.


A fine stock of books and DVD's most in English, there were some very interesting books in German, I should have paid more attention at school!


Here's a fine looking double sided grinder made by Hegner, I have one of their disc sanders which is excellent. It has a nice wide pair of ruby wheels and a very sturdy full width tool rest, the gap between the bars helps with holding chisels and plane blades, as well as accommodating curved and skewed blades. Another really nice feature is the variable speed adjuster, something I've not seen on a grinder before. At 600 + euros not cheap, but I want one!


There was a good selection of axes from various Swedish makers.


Nice to see a choice of replacement handles, axes obviously get used well in the part of the world.


There wasn't an array of European work benches which I had perhaps expected. The only proper bench was a Lie Nielsen, apparently delivered by Tom himself. The vices ran very sweetly.


So if you ever find yourself in The Netherlands then I would highly recommend a visit.
see the web site here https://www.baptist.nl/en/


No comments:

Post a Comment