Hello David,

Things are moving forward. OUR DREAM - ONE OF THE FINEST CRAFT FACILITIES IN THE WORLD - HAS ARRIVED.

With the building’s completion in clear view, our minds are racing toward the future, to when we can once again carry out our program of teaching, making objects, and offering classes and internships. We’re well into the process of moving machines in and closing in on the certificate of occupancy. Our first classes next month will be scheduled to take place in the new building, as will this year's Fall Gathering.

True to our mission, last December we put out a notice that we were accepting internship applications. We have superb applicants that you would be proud to work with, and the selection committee has entered the second round of the selection process.



To prepare for visitors, we’ve secured the rental of two efficiency apartments that we will be renting to Plumier program participants as the “Plumier Guest House” when the apartments are not occupied by interns and residents. The $100 per night price will go toward subsidizing the rent we incur to house the interns and residents and also provide an economical alternative to the local hotels for those coming to learn. You can email me to check on availability. 

The Plumier workshop is one of the very few places in the world where you can come to make extraordinary objects and learn ancient craft skills. What we teach is a remarkable combination of skills - everything from reverence for process, learning to listen to your hands, managing complexity, and gaining confidence in yourself. If you would like to help, please let me know. As our new programming emerges, the contributions you fund will prove more and more important to preserving the endangered, ancient, craft skills and ensuring lives will be enriched by the process of making beautiful, unique objects. The opportunity Plumier provides to work side by side with master craftsmen is a life-changing experience.

As most of you have seen, we’ve announced our first class and our first Open Shop Saturday. 

Our first class will be Introduction to Complex Turning on May 15-17. The Grand Re-opening Open Shop will be three days long, May 9-11. 

All are welcome and encouraged to come visit for a few hours or for the entire weekend.. 

Although the building is not yet fully completed, we’ve moved in almost all of the equipment we had in Port Chester. The turning chamber has most of the complex turning equipment unpacked and set up, and we’re now decorating the walls etc. The trim work is finished, and the remaining lighting awaits final placement of the machinery before it’s installed so it can be effective as task lighting. The room is coming together exceptionally well, and we’re eager to get the room a bit dirty making chips.  

Geoff Saver is installing the cabinets we procured from an early 20th century home in Massachusetts in the archive/vestibule.. The installation has had its challenges, but Geoff has once again proven that he was the right man for the job. They look like they’ve been there forever and they blend beautifully into their surroundings.. These cabinets will serve to house our library and as the perfect display location for our museum/study collection of turnings. Thanks to Richard Vanstrum we will be re-opening with an impressive collection of pieces by some well-known turners.  

While the equipment from Port Chester has been moved in successfully, we now have twice the space we had before. The lower level represents the same square footage that we had, and almost all of the equipment from Port Chester will be installed there. The future of the second story will be to house equipment for the crafts we plan to introduce, such as jewelry, engine turning, enameling, casting, and horology.

We have much of the equipment, we need for these new crafts through some very generous contributions of the machines themselves. However, we’ll need to go and pick up this equipment, haul it to Saltsburg, and install it. That's neither an easy nor an inexpensive endeavor. We’ll soon share more on what equipment we have coming from these donations in a separate email along with a list of equipment and hand tools we still need, such as hand pieces and a larger rolling mill. It will take some time for us to get set up to offer the new crafts, but with your support, we are confident we can make it happen.

We thought that while we were moving a lot of equipment around, it would be the best time to make a couple of machine upgrades to increase our productivity and decrease the amount of time it takes to make specialized tooling, missing parts from vintage machines, and short runs of accessories. To this end we’re adding a three-axis Proto Trak bed mill that can be programmed conversationally, through a computer, or used the old-fashioned way—manually. We’re also adding an older but quite capable Gardner surface grinder that we’re getting from Babin Machine Tools. They are the people that rebuilt our Hardinge lathe and donated the 1926 Hardinge QC lathe as well (we’ll give you more information on the Hardinge once we get it all set up). If you’re in a position to contribute toward upgrades like this, again, we could use a bit of help.  

As we continue the move into the McIlwain Warehouse we need to stop and thank a couple of local businessmen. The job of moving two tractor trailer loads of material and machines was made a world easier with the help of Jack Ruebel and Todd Wagner. Not only did Jack store our stuff for 6 to 9 months, he also helped us transport it. Todd used his fifth wheel trailer and truck and loaned us a forklift on the Plumier side to unload. We can’t say enough about how much these two helped us.  

We also can’t say enough about the help we've received from all of our volunteers. One week recently we had 8 volunteers and 7 of them were here on the same day!!! Geoff Saver has at this point donated over 1200 hours to the project. The building wouldn’t be nearly what it is without all this help. Volunteers have been an integral part of our success from Plumier's inception and have continued to be essential as we move forward.  

If you’d like to support the internship, or Plumier in general, here's how to give:

You can use the Go Fund Me page we set up here: Go Fund Me! You can also use our one time donation button on our “Join Us” page where you can give easily, or you can call me at the number shown below.

Donate Here

Your support will help us serve and develop the ornamental turning community. Plumier is the only place in the world where you can come and learn these nearly lost skills, then walk away with both beautiful objects and an enormous sense of pride and accomplishment.

Support Ornamental Turning, Support Plumier.

If you have questions, give me a call at (570) 352-7137 or email me at david@plumier.org. I'm looking forward to sharing more information on the project as we progress. Again, here’s the link to the plan. New Plumier Home!!

Sincerely,

David Lindow