Trial by Fire & Your 2017 Happy Toolidays List of Hock Tools at $50 or Less

S H A R P & T O T H E P O I N T

A Shameless Shill for Hock Tools

THE HOCK TOOLS NEWSLETTER

#6 /2017

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Greetings!

First, I’d like to thank the many friends who called or emailed to check on us at Hock Tools during the recent fires here in our region of California.

We are lucky to live on the coast, our house only about 2 ½ miles off the Pacific Ocean; the shop, only a few blocks from the water’s edge. Although fires have licked our forests and we’ve had concerns in the past, we have been fortunate, and fortunate to be on this side of a mountain range separating the Mendocino coast from the inland valleys, which do not get the summer fog, are often 50° warmer in summertime than here on the coast, and a tinder box of trees imperiled by a longstanding drought and a voracious pine bark beetle. Even though our air quality suffered, we were the cool spot in our county and our region, our community housing evacuees and others seeking better air on the three days we were blessed by an onshore breeze. Santa Rosa is part of our larger community and our hearts go out to all who suffered the loss of home, or worse, family members. Each of us here on the coast knows someone, or someone who knows someone. It is a tragedy many will work to for years to overcome.

As to helping craftspeople, including woodworkers, who have lost shops during catastrophes such as hurricanes and fires, CERF+ The Artist’s Safety Net is a wonderful non-profit dedicated to helping craftspeople get back on track. In CERF+’s Emergency Relief for Artists Working in Craft Disciplines , direct financial assistance can include grants up to $6,000, no-interest loans up to $9,000, booth fair waivers at craft shows, discounts on materials and equipment from suppliers and manufacturers.

If you are a disaster-impacted woodworker or a potential donor, you may want to check out CERF+ .

On a happier front, we had a fine show at the last European Woodworking Show , where we could hang out with other woodworking handtool makers, users, and instructors. As you know, this is a small band of independent tool producers we affectionately call the proud and unplugged. After that, Linda and I took a couple of weeks to tour Rome and Florence; we came home just in time for the seemingly endless conflagration.

I say, on to better times for all of us! I could hardly believe when Summer came along, and now Fall is in full color, which brings us to your annual list of Hock Tools $50 or less.

Of course, if you need anything from Hock Tools, please let me know.

Ron Hock

Hock Tools

(888) 282-5233

(707) 964-2782

We are proud to provide you the 2017 Happy Toolidays List of Hock Tools $50 or Less . Each one a perfect gift, each one an affordable tool that is useful and long-lived for any handtool enthusiast. We believe in these products; they are each made with the highest quality in mind and in deed. We know they will add to your Toolidays this season!

Retail 617 2017 Happy Toolidays Read More Icon.

Tooliday Tip: this is the time of year woodworkers buy knife kits

like crazy, several at a time. Please get your order in early.

Plane Making Classes

at Oficinalab in São Paulo, Brazil

Longtime Hock Tools customer, Brazilian woodworker Thiago Endrigo and his friend blacksmith Satoru Nakumo have teamed up in São Paulo for an integrated plane and blade workshop at Oficinalab , a local woodworking school and communal shop. These two craftsmen want to restore and promote a more traditional approach to crafts, which means their students learn what it takes to make both plane and blade. And, although it includes making Krenov styled wooden handplanes that are fitted with blades made by Satoru rather than Hock Tools , the project resonates with us. I guess we could say that imitation is the highest form of flattery; yet, what Thiago and Satoru have developed is earnest and beyond simple reproduction.