I feel a little bit like Roy Underhill

[Dan_Shade]

 

 

[doc henderson]

just need a few more freckles on the backside of the fingers.  

[aigheadish]

My dad would watch Roy all the time back when I was a kid. I vaguely remember being mostly uninterested and bored. Now, I'd like to watch him all the time too.

[21incher]

The only reason  I pull a hand plane out anymore  is when I need to make fire starters for my woodstove.  I learned  from watching  Tim the Toolman more power makes everything  easier  ;D. Never watched Roy because  I grew up during a period where power tools were becoming  affordable  and everyone had electricity. 

[doc henderson]

He taught more about precision and patience, as well as the history of tool evolution.  How was it done as we settled this country?  His sense of humor and puns is in line with mine.

[firefighter ontheside]

I watch him more for the story telling than for the woodworking.  I do very little of the hand tool stuff he does.  

[Don P]

This is a good interview with him;
Roy Underhill: Still an Agent of Subversion | Popular Woodworking

I knew his faculty advisor at Duke, his master's presentation was more humorous than he lets on.

[barbender]

I find all of Roy's work fascinating. Go out and chop a tree down in the morning, and have a serviceable piece of furniture or something by the end of the day from it.

[Tom King]

I met Roy in the Spring of 1976 (won't bet on exact year).  I had been sent on a wild goose chase looking for someone that sold live edge Walnut slabs.

Walking down the road in Hillsborough, I passed a house where a bunch of people were building shave horses in the back yard.  I walked into the back yard where they were working, and was told they were in a class learning how to build shavehorses.  I think they were all Duke students.  Roy was about to graduate from Graduate school.

He introduced himself, and said he was surprised someone just walking by would even know what a shavehorse was.  The whole thing seemed really strange to me because I had never heard of a woodworking class, and just thought it was something you did when you wanted to, or needed to.

Roy took me in his little house, which looked almost exactly like the set on the Woodwrights Shop inside, and let me handle a lot of the tools, being surprised that I knew what they all were.  He asked me if I was an Eric Sloane freak.  We exchanged a few jokes, and he had me use his spring pole lathe.

I forget where he got all the tools, but it was not a long time collection of his.  I think it came from some other individual, but I don't really remember.  I believe he was getting a degree in Theater.

We shook hands and I went on my way.  I've not seen him since in person.

He's the same character in person that you see on TV.

[Dan_Shade]

Now, I'd like to watch him all the time too.

I have a PBS app on my fire and Roku TVs, there are a lot of his "woodwright's shop" episodes on there. Very little from the early years, but most of the recent ones.

[doc henderson]

he exaggerated a lot of his injuries and near misses with facial expressions.  there was one he and I think a brother are digging and pulling a stump by hand, and as the case often is, as they stood there in harms way, it flopped back in the hole and he barely was missed.  his suspenders were needed that day.

[DR Buck]

I feel a little bit like Roy Underhill

I have a few of those sweat powered hand planes.   I keep them under the bench covered with shop dust so no one can find them.