Dilo Marcio Fernandino, a woodworker from Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil, has shown the world that a large shop with expensive machinery is not really necessary to build exquisite furniture. That is, if you have enough spare time, patience, and above all a love for using sharp hand tools to shape and carve furniture out of heavy hardwood planks. (It also helps that Dilo has an eye for beauty, a talent for design, a mind that loves to solve problems and a dexterity with tools that he began developing as a small child.)

See what Dilo has just finished building in his cozy 6' x 7' shop:

Members of the Georgia Association of Woodturners are joining an effort to help young people in American Samoa recover from the tsunami catastrophe that occurred there a few weeks ago. Hought Wahl, a Georgia woodturner, will travel to Samoa to join Ernie Newman, a woodturning teacher from Australia to help outfit a woodturning school to train young turners and provide desperately needed jobs and income.

Cash donations are needed to purchase lathes and turning tools. Checks may be sent to Hought Wahl, 769 Bayliss Dr, Marietta, GA 30068, or dropped off at Highland Woodworking. Please include your name and address and indicate "Samoa Turning Aid" on the memo line. Call Hought at 770-329-2458 if you have questions.

C.S. "Doc" Hoth dropped by the store recently with a scale model of the frame of a house that he'd built in Maine back in the early 90s. He wanted to leave it in our front window just so folks could get a look at it. It's there now, and people do indeed stop and look! It's built to a 1" = 1' scale entirely of southern yellow pine held together with CA glue. He says "I built it with minimal loss of blood, although for one moment I was on fire. True story." He says if you provide him with the blueprints for your house, he'll build one for you. Price is negotiable. Doc's phone is 404-308-6594.