Greetings!

June was a breakthrough month at Plumier! 

Plumier Intern Zach Reynolds is back, but he’s no longer an intern. 

At the very end of May, Zach completed his two-year Cabinet & Furniture Making program and graduated from North Bennet Street School! The graduation was held in Boston’s Old North Church, whose belfry was used to warn of British invasion 251 years ago. The 1723 church is a fitting venue to send off another class of students dedicated to historic craft. 

Zach wrapped up his time in Boston by finishing an ambitious project.

This stunning Federal sideboard showcases the skills that Zach has honed at NBSS. It is constructed out of solid mahogany and polar, with figured mahogany veneer and contrasting inlay lines on the doors, drawer face, front details, and side panels. The elegant turned legs were indexed and routed to created the valleys of the reeds, which were then crowned with a profiled scraper—a fine example of the combination of machine tools and hand skills that go into work like this. This challenging design with perfect proportions and faithfulness to a historic style that was executed with standout skill speaks to the Zach’s care for his craft. 

Zach's sideboard was used to hold the diplomas during the graduation ceremony in Old North Church

So where does a young craftsperson go after graduating from such a program? Someone with the skill and drive to make anything but without the workshop to create in or clients to sell to? Well, to Saltsburg naturally! Zach has been awarded Plumier’s first artist residency. 

Putting Zach's skills to work painting a steel mobile base for our surface plate.

As a Plumier artist in residence, Zach is given full use of the workshop, along with some materials, a modest stipend, and housing. He is free to pursue whatever projects he is compelled to make while offering some support to Plumier in our daily operations and projects. A Plumier resident can also audit and assist in any classes we hold, exposing them to a world of different skillsets. Zach has gotten right to work properly organizing our wood shop, moving in his own tools, and getting the space ready for his next projects. He will be staying for at least a year and we are all very happy to have him back in Saltsburg—welcome back Zach! 

Follow Zach on Instagram for more images of his sideboard, which is available for sale.

Zach was joined in his arrival to Saltsburg by two international guests! 

Dan Batty is a young clockmaker from the UK who has come to Plumier to gain some restoration and production experience under David’s direction. He is a recent graduate of the clock making and restoration program from the renowned West Dean College of Arts, Design, Craft, and Conservation. Set on an idyllic former estate of surrealist art patron Edward James in West Sussex, West Dean offers world-class craft education for a range of craft disciplines. Plumier instructor and former Intern Daniel Ravizza is a graduate of their metals conservation program. Through his program at West Dean, Dan was connected with Cumbria Clock Company, where he has worked since graduating. Cumbria Clock Company and a sponsor are investing further in Dan’s education by sending him to Plumier for a Concentrated Learning Experience. 

Dan making good use of the Aciera mill in the Joel Shugar Horological Studio

Dan has wasted no time in getting stuck in on some clock projects. He is taking every challenge David throws at him with an eager good humor and quiet, determined drive. Dan is staying in Saltsburg until the end of August, and he is taking advantage of every minute of it. We’ll be sharing his work along the way and you can follow him on Instagram for more.

Dan, an avid photographer, taking film pics inside Altman's Mill

Musical clock restoration project lined up for Dan to tackle

Lauri Vaher is a man of many interests and has found a place to explore them all at Plumier. He is an architect, designer, visual artist, woodworker, furniture conservator, and educator, along with having work experience in logging, agriculture, and the building trades. Lauri is particularly fascinated by mathematical patterns, or “sacred geometry” that can be seen across the arts, across cultures, and across history. Naturally, that interest brought him to complex turning. 

Born and raised in Estonia, Lauri studied and now teaches at Malmstens Linköping University in Sweden, which has programs in furniture design, cabinetmaking, and upholstery. While deeply immersed and experienced in the world of digital design tools, Lauri believes strongly in exploring the processes of the past, potentially finding ways to combine the two approaches in innovative ways. As part of his research and hands-on study, Lauri has explored historic ripple moulding, bringing a machine that had been a former students thesis project back into service in the school’s workshop. His research also brought him to Skokloster Castle, the 1676 fortified palace of Count Carl Gustaf Wrangel who filled it with treasures. Lauri has assisted in the research and conservation work of the Count’s turning studio, which remains intact along with the original receipts for his tools. It was through this work that Lauri was introduced ornamental turning, a road of interest that would lead him to Saltsburg. 

Lauri also loves to cook and volunteered to make dinner for everyone at Plumier one evening during our press class

Thanks to some grant funding Lauri has received in Sweden, he was able to come to Plumier for a two-month Concentrated Learning Experience. Lauri’s stay runs through the end of July. 

As many of our students arrived on Sunday, Canal Days and the duck race served as a kickoff for our weeklong hydraulic press class. 

For the first time, we hosted a class taught by outside instructors, and there are no better instructors to introduce students to the use of hydraulic presses in craft than Phil Poirier and Peter Gilroy. Phil is a master jeweler and the former owner and operator of Bonny Doon Tools, the makers of bench top hydraulic presses and tooling. Peter, Phil’s nephew, grew up in his uncle’s shop, cut his teeth in the Bonny Doon machine shop, and now owns and operates Bonny Doon himself. Together, they have countless hours of hydraulic forming experience and have worked to innovate the process specifically for jewelers and craftspeople. 

Class started Monday morning with a history of press forming and some of the science behind hydraulic presses. With that, and some safety instructions, it was off to the presses. The first lesson was in cutting simple non-conforming dies out of acrylic sheet. Students were intentionally given no directions on the limits of the process so the class could observe how the many different shaped dies performed, seeing what worked and what didn’t. This was a theme for the class, learning as a group through each other’s trials and errors. 

Member Ernie Miller rolling out silver nickels

Then it was on to conforming dies and learning how one negative die can be used with polyurethane as a free-flowing positive die to shape sheet stock into finely detailed forms. Two sides can then be soldered into a hollow form. Naturally at Plumier, it was not long before we got the rose engines involved cutting conforming dies out of brass.

The next morning, one of the students, David Barnhill, shared his work in mokume gane with the class. Mokume gane is the Japanese art form of layering dissimilar soft metals in twisted and curved lamination to to resemble woodgrain. After years of developing his technique, David can form the material at an impressive scale. He hand raises the brilliant patterned metal into striking forms and vessels. David has collaborated in mokume gane pieces with David Huang, who presented at last year’s Fall Gathering.

That days lesson was all about using the press to precisely shape metal. A wide range of shapes can be formed with a relatively small number of mandrels. Students worked on bracelet forms and once again complex turning was incorporated. Sheets of brass or silver that have been engine turned can then be formed in the press without destroying the pattern by using polyurethane as an elastic swage. 

It was time to break out the tool steel on day three. Peter demonstrated how a basic set of files and hand tools could be used to quickly cut a small button sized form in tool steel. Given a time limit, students spread out around the shop to find a vise and get to work. Before long, the hobs were taking shape. When time was up, they were placed in the oven for heat treating. 

While the dies were slowly heating up, Phil introduced the class to the magic of deep drawing. Deep drawing turns flat metal into hollowware forms.Through a series of progressive dies, the form can become deeper and thinner in diameter. The thickness of the metal is consistent throughout the drawn piece, equal to the delta between the two dies. The metal behaves like a liquid under the power of the press! With the right die sets, a box and a perfectly fitting lid can be drawn. Long vessels can be cut into a tube stock or sliced into rings, each consistent in thickness. Like each of the press techniques covered in the class, it has near limitless potential. 

After hardening and tempering, the students steel hobs were ready to be used on Thursday morning to create a negative die. Even with the hand pump, the hydraulic press has no problem pressing tool steel into tool steel resulting in a negative of the design with extreme fidelity. The resulting negative can be used as a coining die for thicker metal, or as a conforming die with the original hob acting as a perfectly fitting positive die to shape thin stock.

Of course these new dies had to also be hardened and tempered before use, providing a perfect break time to tour Altman’s Mill. 

A2 tool steel dies glowing red hot through their stainless envelopes, hardening as they slowly cool

After a traditional Plumier lunch of Vienna Beef hotdogs with all of the fixings, it was back to experimenting with deep drawing. Phil introduced some of the larger format drawing dies along with some unique shapes that can achieved with other custom dies after deep drawing. Just then, the power went out. This group of students not being so easily stopped, a few battery lights were produced and the good old hand pump press became the star of the show. 

When the power outage continued into the late afternoon on this hot June day, we did decided it was our civic duty to cross the street to the Point Street Tavern to help them dispose of their ice cream stock.

Friday morning it was finally time to use the heat treated coining and conforming dies. Students were thrilled to see how their hand cut tools performed and shared their results with one another. The rest of the day spent exploring more deep drawn forms, finishing boxes and vessels, and engine turning drawn pieces. Even as the formal class came to an end and everyone was overloaded with information, our intrepid students kept going, eager to make the most out of their time in the Plumier shop. 

It is safe to say that this first class of its kind was a resounding success. Not only was it the first class with outside instructors, but it was the first class that was not centered specifically around complex turning and the first class in our future jewelry studio space. This was a big milestone for Plumier, and we could not have asked for better instructors or a better group of students to cross it with. Thanks to the generous support of this community, Plumier was able to award three scholarships to this class for students who could really use the education but could not afford the tuition. Our goal is to continue to offer classes in areas of craft that are often overlooked in education. Please consider helping us provide more scholarships to these rare opportunities by contributing to our Scholarship Fund. 

Cody Sobel in a pensive moment

Class was immediately followed by an Open Shop Saturday on July 13. This was another great Open Shop at Plumier with good group of people engaged in shop talk throughout the day.

For the second time, we had a guest speaker to present to the group. Lauri Vaher presented on his research on historic ripple moulding. He went through some of the different forms of ripple moulding that he has come across and his work getting the handmade machine at Malmstens operational. He also shared his vision of how similar mechanical patterns could be applied today in design work and architecture. It was a fantastic presentation and it will be interesting to see where Lauri takes his exploration while at Plumier and beyond. 

Sharon Que was thrilled when she learned from her friend Jon Szalay that we were hosting a presentation on ripple moulding. She had built her own ripple moulding machine and had run into some mechanical issues. Naturally, the best thing to do was to bring the machine to Plumier. Within only a few minutes, there was a team of people the around the machine ready to help. Some temporary fixes were made along with suggestions for future improvement, and Sharon went home armed with more insight into the arcane process. 

Miniature Holtzapffel and Deyerlein woodturning lathe by William Robertson, brought to show at the Open Shop. Bill will be presenting at our Fall Gathering in October.

Phil stayed for a few days after the press class to give the Plumier team some instruction on fixed tool rose engine turning.

Daniel machined a tool holder for the MADE Lathe, which was designed to be robust enough for fixed tool work. Phil gave a crash course on grinding high speed steel planer blades into profiled cutters. These custom shaped cutters are the key to fixed tool work. The shape of the cuter determines the profile of the piece, so the turner must be able to grind the desired curves with the proper cutting geometry.

Before John Jacob Holtzapffel introduced live tooling at around 1800, fix tool work on a rose engine was how ornamental turning was done. We have not yet explored fixed tool work at Plumier, but after Phil’s demonstration, we are itching to try more! 

Phil demonstrating the laser welder and utilizing a greenwood chair made by Zach

Phil also gave us a lesson on how to set up and operate our new laser welder! The timing was serendipitous, as Dan needed to weld a clock part and had never used a laser welder before. 

Plumier member Bill Brinker giving pointers to Dan

Lauri and Dan are getting a full cultural experience (Pic by Zach)

"Don't forget to bore!" note left by Dan for Dan, a great shop trick!

At the halfway point of the year it can be easy to look back with despair at one’s best laid plans from January. The months fly by and progress on major goals seems slow. What we saw at Plumier this month wasn’t the work of the last six months, but the steady work of years coming to fruition. Artist residencies have been a goal since the Plumier Foundation’s inception. The Internship program proved the impact of immersive study at Plumier and we have always wanted to open it up for longer stays. Our move to Saltsburg made it more feasible for both the Foundation and the artists, and now we have our first Resident. If it was not for the long term vision of that goal at the outset, the Internship program that tested the idea and that brought us Zach, or the continued support of this mission by our members and donors, we would not be crossing this milestone today. 

The same is true of our two guests, Dan and Lauri, here from abroad for Concentrated Learning Experiences. Our community is growing across oceans, with new connections and partnerships that will only grow further. With Zach, Dan, and Lauri, the shop is alive as it should be every day of the week. This month has been a glimpse of what Plumier can be. Residents and guests from varied crafts working throughout the shop on different projects, the building humming with activity—these artists from different disciplines and different backgrounds coming together to collaborate on beautiful objects or to simply share meals and banter around the table. 

The press class was also years in the making. It is a product of a vision of craft education that meets the needs of a community and a broader world of craftspeople. For the first time, we brought in teachers to teach what we could not. We held a class in an unfinished studio, and no one thought twice about it. Not everything was perfectly set up or organized and that didn’t slow anyone down. Everyone involved sees the vision and is excited to be a part of it. The space proved to be an excellent classroom and we cannot wait to finish it. Having these capabilities and the people to use them under one roof was always the goal for Plumier. 

Thank you for your continued support of Plumier and craft education. If you are not already a member, please consider joining today to help us continue this work. These many seeds long cast and long tended will continue to sprout with new green life and perennial blooms.

View of the pond at the Earhart Retreat—come stay with us! 

Garden planted by Becky Lindow at the Earhart Retreat

Sincerely,

David Lindow

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