 So, Tom, why don't you just introduce yourself and tell us where we are? My name is Tom Locketel. We are at the Winooski Senior Center where I've been allowed to set up my workshop. Let me talk a little bit about how this project of yours got started. Okay, well, two years ago, or almost two and a half years ago now, I was up at Gilbrook. And I started harvesting dead logs around the ground. And I realized that, you know, they've got quite a bit of life left in them. I wonder what I can make. And as some people might know, I already made a table almost identical to this one. Up there, at Gilbrook, sighted up on a really nice grove of evergreen trees that overlooks the three ponds that are up there. And I thought that would be it. I'm like, okay, I got that done. Now what do I do? So you left it right up there in the public space. Yes, it's a little seeding area similar to this, pretty much identical, really, to these. And what I'm doing right now is making two end benches for them. And this is an example of what kind of semi decayed old wood that has been sitting on the ground for a while. This is kind of what it looks like. So I'm using standard mortise and tenon joinery. People call it timber frame. And I'm using the wood pretty much in a rough shape as it comes off the tree. And then I go to work on it to kind of smooth all the rough edges and take off some of the really old looking stuff. And it ends up looking pretty colorful with a lot of different character to it. So I'm in the middle of doing this bench here. And this piece is a rough piece. This one has got the tenon on it, which will go into a mortise, which is a square hole. And how do you cut the square hole? Square hole is just made with a bunch of round holes and a flat chisel. So I take out most of the material with a drill bit and then I will come in with a chisel and make all the edges straight and square corners so that this tenon will fit into it. There is the leg to this bench. It has a mortise and tenon joint that goes up into the seat. And it has an oak peg that locks it all together. This is a sibling or nephew or cousin or something to one of these logs that's in here. I don't know. They all came from about six to eight dead pine trees that were up there at Gilbrook. And this was what I thought was just going to be something I wouldn't be able to use because it was hollow and it was rotten. But then I'm thinking, you know what? This is so easy to hollow out. I'm going to make a hollow bench out of it. And that's what I did. And it's your toolbox. And it's my toolbox now. So here are all the tools I use, pretty much all of them that I use for my hand tool work. And I've got some straight edges in there and levels and stuff. But yeah, this guy here is the old school kind of saw that I used to cut the pieces. I actually cut a lot of logs with this, cut all these pieces with this. And then this here is probably my most used and I got to say my favorite tool. I bought it online. It's made in Switzerland. I paid a lot of money for it, probably too much. But they call it a carving axe. So okay, I guess I'm a woodcarver. There's one. And then this one I almost like as much as the axe. That is a slick. It's just a word for a big chisel meant to be used by hand. And once I get to this point with the axe, get it close, then I can come in with this guy. And see how nice that works? Yeah, it just takes off all that stuff until you get it really flat. I'm not going to go crazy on it because then I'll take too much of something I don't want to take. And that's a bummer because you have to see a board stretcher anywhere. Okay, so that's one step of it. And the next step are these. These are just old school hand planes. Excuse me if I'm not getting anywhere with this right now. But usually I'll have this clamped down so it's not moving around. I think you can get the picture here of how this will take a rough surface and get it even smoother. So in a nutshell are the tools right here. So along with that huge chest with all the stuff in it, I got this little guy here. And this holds a lot of the stuff I use. Small plane, old school ruler. Take measure, chalk line, square, a variety of chisels. Just store bought regular old chisels. That's what I use to make the mortises. And I got a pretty good size one for that. I think that's all I really need to show you out of here. I do have this nice tool. That's a rasp. That really is handy. When I started doing this stuff, I really kind of went into making finished kind of looking stuff that really had a lot of flatness and straightness whereas these don't. And all the scraps that I was coming away from with the pieces that I had, I saved them. Like for instance, I'm saving these. That's a flat surface right there. It's hard to make that by hand from a log so I don't want to throw them away. And what I ended up doing with them is making little toys or whatever you want to call them. I mean I guess you could cut off this as a toy but it's made out of little individual blocks. And it's all cut-offs from pieces that I've made. They were already dimensioned and I didn't want to throw them away. And it wasn't that hard to just kind of put them together like a kid playing with blocks. So I made a bunch of that stuff. This guy here is a hollow log that I found out in the woods similar to my work bench or my log bench. And I made another one. So that is either going to end up being something they hang on a wall with a few shelves in it or it'll just be like that and just have a little curio cabin. Something you can just put stuff in. I had so many of these little blocks and I always liked monumental architecture and especially ancient Greek architecture. So I played around with the blocks and I came up with my version of the Acropolis. Right there. And I'm also very much into found objects which kind of relates back to these finding these dead trees that are just going to sit there and rot. This, and I don't know what this has to do with anything but I don't have to say this here. This is my favorite found object so far. And in case you don't know what that is, that's a hook that goes on a big old crane and it's got a stamp on it that enabled me to Google it and find out what it's for. Where did you find it? I found it up on Hercules Drive and I pretty much know where it came from. It literally fell off a truck. I'm not kidding here. So that thing will lift 40,000 pounds according to the brand of it. What do you think your table weighs? The table? I don't know. That's a good question. You know I'm not averse to showing off so let me show you something. It shouldn't take long and this will give you an idea of how much this thing might weigh. I made it so I could take it apart easily and move it to wherever I need. And it's been real handy for me to have it here dealing with these big chunks of wood. I make something, don't really know what I'm going to do with it and before you know it it's got a use. So here is a lock. This lock here, I used to have, I used to know each one of these logs like a personal friend. It's story, where it came from, what other pieces came with it because a lot of these trees were like 40, 50 feet long. And I used all of it. So it's like yeah this one goes to that one, this one goes to that one, blah blah blah, I used to remember. But now I don't anymore unless I really think. So here we go, this comes apart. Alright, using this I'll be able to show you how this works. I tried to do it so that I could do it myself, but there you go. There's one end and then here's another end. Yeah, there we go. There we go. Then, wow, I'll buy myself a little mind. Wow, so there you go. There's a mortise and tenon joint for you. Nice. And as you can see that's pretty doggone heavy. I don't think I could lift this by myself. I would say it probably weighs 200 pounds. I wouldn't try. So I'm not going to try even though I want to. The scale of what you're doing is very extraordinary. Yeah, so there and as you can see this gives you a better look at the oak frame. This tenon actually goes all the way through and it's one piece. That's one piece. That tenon comes through this mortise from this piece and it sticks up enough just to engage that. There's nothing structural about it, it's just to hold it in place. Wow. Whereas this piece is really structural. This will hold it together and be a strong joint just like on a timber frame. That's a big one, yeah. So that's the difference there. Well, these are great and I appreciate your visit today. Yeah, you're welcome. My pleasure. Go to Gilbrook and see the table. And this one will be in the Winooski parks soon. And if you have any ideas on where to go, I'd love to hear it.