I would like to tell you about a remarkable man. His name is Keith Cruickshank. He runs a video blog: www.woodtreks.com. This is no ordinary woodworking blog. Out of his interest in woodworking and the goodness of his heart, Keith seeks out woodworkers of exceptional talent and reputation. He travels to their work site and takes high quality videos of them demonstrating some aspect of their expertise.

So what Keith is providing is private tutorials from real experts. Now I have learned that there are three learning styles. One is auditory. These people learn from reading or hearing someone speak. The second is visual. These need to see what is being presented. Then there are the hands on learners who need to hear it, see it, work with it and talk about it.

When we teach, if we do not provide adequate learning experiences for all three learning types, some will be left behind. I have people come to me and ask me to show them skills in my shop because, unlike me, they find it impossible to learn from a book. Just let them see it done or try it themselves and they have it.

With his very well done videos, Keith comes as close to providing for all three learning styles as is possible using a single medium. There is a running commentary on what is being done as it is being done. The expert talks the student through the demonstration at the same time he is performing the work. Due to the high quality video camera work it is almost like being in the room with the expert.

The subjects of the videos, which are very to the point and not overly long, cover a very wide range of topics from lumber selection to proper sharpening techniques to how to make perfectly fitting dovetail joints. You may not have a need for every subject covered but if you watch, I guarantee that you will learn something. In fact you might find that you are inspired to do something that you have not done before.

There are a lot of woodworking DVDs on the market and some are very good but they mostly are by one expert and all cost money. Keith’s site is completely free. I don’t know how he manages to do this as his trips may last days and cover considerable distances. Yet he keeps coming up with new and, to me at least, very interesting subjects.

Since the videos are short you can cover a lesson in one easy sitting. All the previous subjects are indexed so you can pick and choose the areas of your interest. No sitting for an hour or more to find the one piece of information you need. For your convenience you can elect to receive e-mail reminders whenever a new video is produced.

I spoke with Keith recently to try to find out what motivates him to provide this wonderful service free of charge. He told me that he had a background in computing and a love of digital photography. These qualities coupled with a life long interest in woodworking have put him on a mission of helping to link experts, many of whom are not widely known, with those who thirst for this knowledge. The quality of the subject matter and the execution are really exceptional in my opinion.

There are several thoughts that come to mind. First I feel that we should take advantage of the knowledge being presented in this unusual site. It will make us better woodworkers. Second, I think we should encourage other woodworkers to visit the site. Third, I think we should express our gratitude for the service being given by giving Keith some feedback on how much you enjoy what he has created. Having recently celebrated my 70th birthday, I can vouch for the fact that this kind of information was just not available when I was starting in woodworking. There was an occasional book or journal and that was it. You never knew the quality of the book until you bought it. Until Fine Woodworking started to be published in the 1970s, the quality of the journals was not so high.

So, I want to voice my gratitude to Keith for the service he is providing to woodworkers and hope that he is inspired to continue this labor of love. Woodworking is much easier and more fulfilling due to his educational efforts. Don’t miss his blog!

As the mind becomes less rigidly bound, it goes beyond the shop and your own projects and wonders what it is like in other wood turner’s shops. Working in isolation is satisfying but always in the back of your mind are a few nagging questions. Has some one else done this before and done it better or easier? Could I save some time by not re-inventing the wheel myself? How do others express their creativity? With these thoughts in mind I wish to share my experiences with another woodworker.

I first met Dustin Coates over Christmas holiday in December, 2007. My daughter, who lives in Etna, New Hampshire sent me an article from the local paper in Hanover which did a feature article on him. Knowing of my interest in wood turning and my planned holiday visit she thought I might be interested.

Was I ever! The picture showed a pick up truck at Dustin’s shop, which is just two miles up the road from where my daughter lived. On this truck was a piece of burl which was so big that they had to hitch a tractor to it to pull it off the bed of the truck. This was more than enough to whet my interest.

I wasn’t sure what I would encounter driving up to his shop unannounced. As I pulled in, my eye fell on the most marvelous assortment of logs, burls, pieces of equipment and other objects, peeking out of the rapidly melting snow.

There was no one in his little studio but my eye immediately fell on row after row of beautiful burl wood bowls. Clearly I was dealing with someone with a refined eye and sensitivity to wood which I shared.

Back outside I encountered Dustin, a huge ox of a man with a gentle, wispy, full-faced beard and dancing blue eyes set in a very kind face. When he smiled, which was often, his whole face lit up with pleasure. I explained that I had read the article in the paper about him and that my daughter lived just down the road. I mentioned that I was a wood turner as well and would be interested in seeing his shop. Here I was, a perfect stranger, interfering with a working man.

If he minded, Dustin did not let on as he took me around his shop. The piles of wood in the yard were in seeming disarray but as he showed me around, it was clear that he knew where every piece came from, a story about the wood, and an intended purpose for all of it. He spoke in loving terms about a 150 year old gigantic walnut limb or a burl he bought from one of his many lumberman contacts. To the casual observer, the wood lot was chaos but in Dustin’s mind it was as orderly as it could be.

If the lot was impressive, I was not prepared for what I saw inside his workshop. In room after room there were rough turned bowl blanks stacked from floor to ceiling. In some areas we were walking on them. These were newly turned green blanks which had been buried under wood shavings to slow the rate at which they dried, in order to prevent cracking.

There was just enough room to get to the various lathes. Some of the lathes were quite old but they were still very functional and much sturdier than many modern machines.

I noticed nests of rough turned bowls where many bowls had been cored from a single blank. This was a technique I had not yet mastered. To make a fifteen inch bowl I would reduce the insides to sawdust.

I mentioned to him that I was interested in learning how to core bowl blanks and could see that he had certainly mastered the techniques. When you work with burl, you are working with expensive material and need to maximize the use of the precious resource.

I asked about the tools he used for this purpose. His response was: “Here, I will show you how to do it.” With this he picked up a round chunk of wood, mounted it on his antique lathe, installed the coring device and before my very eyes in less than five minutes produced a perfectly cored bowl blank with the center of the blank preserved to core yet another bowl blank.

It looked so easy that I got him to give me details on what tools to order. His advice was very practical and he saved me from purchasing inferior tools and from getting more tools than I needed for the job I needed to do.

Now I have cored over one hundred blanks myself. I made trips to his shop that summer to pick up pointers on the finer aspects of coring. These he gave as freely as he did his time.

For a slow learner like myself, listening to Dustin is a bit like trying to get a drink of water from a fire hose. He has so much imagination and so many ideas packed in that head of his that they come rushing out at a prodigious rate. I just wish I could remember a third of the tips and ideas he shared with me.

Days spent with Dustin are always too short, and he never seems to be in a hurry to see me go. It is when I leave that his generous nature begins to come into full force. The first time I left, he innocently asked me if I had any use for a piece of crotch butternut wood.

Now, butternut is not a native species where I live in Maryland so I gladly accepted. When we went to the log, it was huge. It was so big, in fact, that it took both Dustin and another burly wood cutter to pick it up and place it in my Honda, where it completely filled the trunk.

Each time I visit it is always the same ritual. This summer it was another large butternut log, end pieces of beautiful burl woods and some buckthorn. Last time it was honey locust logs, more burl scrap pieces and some lilac wood.

Who, but Dustin Coates would have lilac wood? I’m talking about the woody stem of the flowering lilac bush. The insides of this wood were a beautiful reddish purple color. When I made pins out of them and applied friction with sanding, the aroma was very heavenly.

So, if you ever find yourself in Hanover, New Hampshire, take a trip down Trescott Road to visit Dustin in his shop and studio. Or drop him a line at 5 Trescott Road, Etna, New Hampshire 03750. Dustin is too busy turning to bother with computers, but he may answer the phone at (603) 643-3499 when he is not in the shop. If you are anything like me, you will find it an unforgettable experience and you may come away with one of his beautiful, burl bowls to treasure for a life time. He is truly a New England Treasure.

Photos by my son, Todd Smith. Prints are available for sale on his website.