Woodworking in America Trip

The day before going to the show we had a good look around Old Salem, which lived up to the recommendation, thanks David.
This was a Mennonite community originating from Eastern Europe. Although the many properties have been for the most part rebuilt, it's been very well done. This is the Two Brothers house which featured some wonderfully executed double dovetail on an amazing scale.

This was the Single Mens house, the single woman's house was just across the green, so not as bad as it sounds!

A fine German bench with a dog leg vice, a very useful thing. Notice the angled support leg, doing the job without getting in the way. I have one of these on the to do list, I must remember that feature.

Another fine old bench with a leg vice and angled legs for maximum stability.

There seemed to be beautifully executed dovetails everywhere, even the stretchers of this stool had them!

And some more with a crazy angle and pins as skinny as you like.

This was the most enjoyable building we visited, the gun smiths shop. We had a fascinating history of the gradual transition from the European ways to new American ones. He also had plenty of well supported opinions on more recent topics such as US gun laws, health and social security. I tried to coax him a couple of times into working on the gun stock behind him but to no avail.

Here's a couple of antique guns (do not touch jobs!) the one at top was the more fancy with plenty of brass inlay and additional shaping. The wood was curly maple which replaced the more traditional maple of Europe. His hand made reproductions of these guns started at $3,000 which I thought seemed quite reasonable, that is when he got round to doing some work!
Anyway with appetite truly whetted it's off to the show!