Ken Stone, director of the MIT Hobby Shop, has been teaching students how to make post and rung stools this summer, using only hand tools. At top left, he holds a froe, as mechanical engineering graduate student Aimee Angel brings the froe club down onto the green piece of red oak she is riving (the term for controlled splitting). Below, Ms. Angel proudly displays her finished stool. The seat is hand woven of strapping, and contains wood shavings saved from the early stages of building the piece. The Hobby Shop is open to members of the MIT community.
Below left, Martha Adams, retired from the math department, uses a drawknife to shave wood on a shaving horse. At right, a Hobby Shop participant drills mortice holes in posts, to fit the tenons of rungs.
For information, contact Ken Stone at kenstone@mit.edu or x3-4343.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on August 23, 2000.
