Around the time theBerlin Wallfell in 1989, I worked at the State Department.
Eventually I got to the point where I felt I could make reproductions of some of the Federal pieces.
I relied on instructional books and videos.
My most ambitious project was a pair of Pembroke drop-leaf tables with banding and inlays.
I was kind of exhausted by those tables, though.
So I stopped for about 15 years.
I sold all of my big power tools but kept my collection of hand tools.
The ones I like the best are Japanese.
Nobody found out until he passed away in the 1970s.
The technology in my Japanese chisels and planes is exactly the same.
Next, I want to make a Windsor chair in the style of the Maine craftsman Thomas Moser.
Because what I do for a living is so abstract, it’s really satisfying to create something tangible.
Hand planing a surface to a mirrorlike finish requires putting an edge sharper than a razor on a blade.
Francis Fukuyama, 63, wroteThe End of History and the Last Man.
His most recent book isPolitical Order and Political Decay.
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