As the son of a furniture maker and sculptor, I have been in contact with the joy of woodworking and the beauty of wood already from a very young age. For my seventh birthday, my father gave me a small workbench and some kid's tools, so I could try for myself what I saw him doing. I still remember the smell of wood shavings he carried, when I sat on his lap in the evening when he came home from work, or how I enjoyed standing next to his workbench and watching him carving wood. It's a sweet memory, and I guess it was experiences like these that planted the seeds of what was to become an enjoyable hobby and passion of mine.
Although I eventually chose a different direction for my career - I obtained a PhD in Molecular Biology and until my retirement in 2021 I worked at several biotech pharmaceutical companies - the love for working with wood has never left me. Much of my spare time goes to designing and creating new projects, trying new techniques, searching for some beautiful or special woods for a next project, or simply enjoying what others have made and trying to learn from that.
Over the years, I have collected a range of hand tools and machinery, and I have transformed part of our two-car garage into a workshop. It's not ideal, but when the cars are out, the 6 x 8 m space is sufficiently large to work comfortably, even on larger pieces. My main equipment is a combination machine (table saw, jointer, thicknesser, shaper and mortiser), and a 4000 mm band saw machine, next to a range of smaller power tools (circular saw, plunge router, orbital and belt sander, drills, Festool domino joiners,...). Among the hand tools, I've had a lot of pleasure using Japanese pull-stroke saws, and the tool I favour most is the bronze Lie Nielsen N°4 bench plane I bought some time ago - expensive, but a joy to work with.
