Ms Debbie P's 2008 Shop Tour and Inspection #3: March 30 Visit to the Workshop of Le Cheval De Bois

This months tour is closer to home for MsDebbieP, allowing more time for her spring gardening plans (Yes! It’s won’t be that long till Spring).
Our visit is to Ébénisterie Le Cheval de Bois in Montreal, the workshop of LJ Patrick Robinson. His LJ handle is lechevaldebois, and he is the sole proprietor of a cabinet shop, with an enviable workshop.

Flooded with light fitting of an artist’s studio, Patrick has a tightly organized shop, with all the provisions for safety in the shop. Big points for eye and ear protection, fire prevention and safe stock handling. And he doesn’t have to resort to a shirt sleeve (or worse), should his nose get busy during a project. This is evolved woodworking.

I was particularly interested in the fine collection of planes and the designing station. And the clamp collection.
You owe it to yourself to wander over to lechevaldebois's project page for a view of the work coming from Le Ébénisterie.

But the real reason I lobbied hard for the visit was to get a load of the large piece of Texas ebony Patrick purchased from fellow LJ BlueStingrayBoots.

Get a load of that log! After all what is an Ébénisterie without ebony? From some of the comments of the LJs that have worked this timber (WayneC one), this is an exceptional purchase, and potentially a source of some excellent discussion of lumber seasoning. It certainly has interesting aspects of urban logging and international commerce. I can’t wait to see some of this put to masterful use.

Here is a shot with the proud owner, and Debbie who is preparing for the official assay of lumber assets.

We close out our visit with a family moment as L’Enfant De Bois visits the shop, and Debbie prepares for the final tabulations of the Inspection.

I could tell as soon as we saw the overhead extension cord reel how this was all going to come out, sadly remembering my own shop inspection failure (yes, the only one yet recorded in the shop visit annals).

In total, out visit to the Knight of Wood was great. You have one winner of a shop, Patrick. You may download your shop accreditation certificate here.

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.