Popular Woodworking 2007-10 № 164, страница 68

by kara gebhart uhl

The Home Shop

Great Woodshops

Shaker oval boxes. John Wilson, shown here in front of The Home Shop, is renowned for his reproductions of these useful and decorative pieces, and for teaching others how to make them.

John Wilson has made a successful career out of writing, teaching and

selling a Shaker craft. ■

n 1977, Wilson received an offer to teach furniture making at Michigan's Lansing Community College. There was only one catch: The class they wanted him to teach began in two hours. Wilson drove to a library, checked out Ejner Handberg's "Shop Drawings of Shaker Furniture & Woodenware" (Vol. 1), and with the help of his students chose a dovetailed dining tray as the class project. It was in that book the now-famed Shaker-box maker discovered the oval boxes.

Wilson tells this story 30 years later on a cool May evening in Charlotte, Mich., while sitting around a bonfire and eating chocolate with his wife, Sally, and two children, 13-year-old Molly and 7-year-old Will. In front of him is his 32' x 86' shop, The Home Shop. To the right is The Little House, 16' x 16' of space in which he lived for 12 years, including five years making boxes before his shop was finished. Behind him is his current home. For Wilson, home and shop have always been deeply intertwined. Although once one-in-the-same, the two are now separated only by a small yard that serves as a playground for Molly, Will and a handful of chickens.

Today, the teacher, craftsman and writer is best known for his Shaker boxes (see August 2003, issue #135 for his Popular Woodworking article on how to make these). For more than 20 years he has made boxes, taught box-making classes, and sold bands, tops and bottoms for various sizes and styles of boxes, carriers and trays. Since 1991, Wilson also has produced and sold the hard-to-find copper tacks, distinctive of the box lap.

Rehoboth - Ample Room

Wilson, who grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., was given free reign of his dad's small basement shop, which consisted only of hand tools. "My parents must have subscribed to the adage that hand tools are reasonably safe if reason

ably used, or pain intervenes before damage is done," he said. "Think hand saw versus table saw."

While studying anthropology, Wilson, now 68, worked his way through college as a carpenter. After earning his master's degree

82 ■ Popular Woodworking October 2007

photos by al parrish