Benchmade Furniture

Benchmade Furniture - About Tom

About Tom (by Tom)

When I was young, about 8 or 9 years old, I went with my father to a large hardware store in Baltimore. In a typically brat-like way I spied a hand plane that I simply had to have. I knew it was a neat tool because, even at that young age, I watched a "how-to" show on TV sponsored by Skearie, a well known store downtown. Pleading paid off handsomely and in due course this very expensive tool was mine. I tried to make things but my attempts were nothing more than crude objects of boards nailed together. My parents, being remarkably non-mechanical, had no understanding why I behaved this way and not knowing what to do about it offered no encouragement. With sufficient time my interests drifted off to other things.

My early college career confirmed an inaptitude for math and hard science so I found something that was fun, archeology. I graduated in 1975 from university with a master's degree in anthropology and promptly got a job as an archeologist with the US Department of the Interior. With the government I ran several projects, participated on planning teams and worked with architects in the restoration of historic properties. Toward the end of my tenure I formed my own preservation consulting firm. I did archeological research, while partners did environmental, architectural and landscape studies for municipal clients. Throughout this period I especially benefited from associating with historic architects, to whom I am indebted for much of my preservation experience. By the time I left the government I had spent twenty years in historic preservation related activities.

Nancy, my wife, and I bought an antique house in the hunt country of Loudoun County, Virginia where I continued a consulting/restoration business; I had supported myself in grad school as a carpenter so this came naturally. On a visit to my brother's home in Baltimore I asked If he remembered the plane I had pestered our father about so long ago. A half-hour's search in the basement brought a red cardboard box to light. In it, still wrapped in oil cloth, still coated in cosmolene, still with its cutting iron packed for shipping was a beautiful Miller Falls No. 8 smooth plane with rosewood handles. The price my father had paid was still visible on the box top: $6.79.

I'm not particularly spiritual so I didn't hear a choir of angels but this was something of an epiphany. Years in construction, remodeling and puttering for my own amusement demonstrated that I wasn't a klutz. After all I still had all my original fingers. That is when I decided to return to what was possibly my original calling. I started out building bookcases and kitchen cabinets, restoring an occasional piece of middle aged furniture, making small reproduction items like boxes, studying, reading, talking to knowledgeable people. I even got some pointers from Roy Underhill on PBS's The Woodwright's Shop. Above all the secret is practice, practice, practice. The results of this effort are presented for your approval in the catalog section of this site.

And, by the way, about that Miller Falls No. 8 smooth plane: Thanks dad.