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Richard Raffan video on boxes

Mike Stafford

Mike Stafford

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Jay Caughron kindly clued me in about this video Richard Raffan posted on Youtube in which he included one of my boxes and made a few comments. The box is bocote and is one of the boxes I traded with Richard in 2011.

Here is a link to the video. My box makes an appearance at about 6:55 in the video.


Thanks Jay for letting me know. It is always an honor to be included by Richard Raffan. He was and is the man who inspired me to become a woodturner.
 
Don Baer said:
Cool stuff Mike. When I was just thinking about getting into turning, Raffan was one of the artists I studied just to see what it was all about.
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Don. when I got into turning it was because of a picture of a box on the cover of Richard Raffan's first edition book Turning Boxes with Richard Raffan.

At the time I building a lot of art boxes. I was having difficulty coming up with artistic handle designs that I could make with a table saw, scroll saw and band saw etc. I had a Shopsmith and the turning tools that came with it so I decided I could turn some fancy handles. I mean how hard could it be?

Well, trying to turn something small with those oversized Shopsmith tools and no appreciable skill proved to be quite a challenge. Not one to give up I decided that I needed some smaller tools and perhaps, a book on turning might be useful since I knew absolutely nothing about turning.

The next time I was in Raleigh I stopped at the Klingspor Woodworking Shop and bought some turning chisels. I also looked for some books that might help me learn to turn. As I perused the books on the shelves my eyes fell upon the Raffan Turning Boxes book. It had the most beautiful little box on the cover. I bought that book and proceeded to start teaching myself how to turn. That was an adventure that is a funny story. I had a horrible teacher and was a pretty bad student so progress was slow. But those decisions have enriched my life so much. I have been places and met so many wonderful people because of that book. In 2008 I met Richard and spent several days with him. I drove him to the Richmond symposium. Then I spent two weeks with him on the Woodturning Cruise in 2011 where we were both demonstrators. You cannot imagine how honored I was to be in his company. We have been pen pals for quite a few years now.

It all started with this book.

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