mastercraftsman

People who have weird mannerisms crack me up. I thought me wiggling my pinky and thumb out like surfers do instead of the typical Southern thumbs up got a lot of attention until my Ukranian friend dropped one on me today that had me rolling. He's a very experienced woodworker who was machining a raised panel of gnarly Honduran mahogany. No one else but me out of the forty or so craftsmen in the shop would attempt to bevel that particular cut of wood, but it was needed in order to get a bookmatched swirl (this is where the line blurs between art, science, and just plain years of knowing what the inside of a block will look like when cut a certain way.) Anyway a crowd is building around him and I walk over, he concentrating, taking only about twenty thousanths of an inch per pass. His face was only a couple feet from a 6" carbide cutter spinning at 3400rpm. All of a sudden the block about a ten inches square shatters in his hands with a loud crack, and a broken half flew off the machine, nearly hitting someone in the leg. He looks up at me, grabs the seat of his pants, tugs a few times while shaking his leg, as if letting a turd fall out, then went about his business. Ukranian humor is something I've really come to appreciate....