Glenn Livingston, Woodjoy Tools Toolmaker of the Month, 11/2006


 

 

Woodjoy Tools designs and handcrafts tools for woodworkers who delight in traditional woodworking.  We craft durable tools that are both practical and a pleasure to use.  We seek to improve traditional designs and to develop new tools that make hand work easier and more efficient.
Glenn Livingston started Woodjoy Tools in 1995 with an idea for a unique engineer's square.

Inspired by an antique square made in 1886 while laying out a project in his shop, Glenn developed a prototype that he brought to a Mike Dunbar Windsor chair class. Mike Dunbar and others in the class showed such interest in the total square that Glenn decided to manufacture it.

The need for chair maker's tools led to the development of various specialty tools and spokeshaves. One of Glenn's improvements to the design of spokeshaves is the attachment of the blade to the body with a positive lock system using setscrews and machine screws.  This eliminates cumbersome tangs and allows quick and easy fine adjustments to the blade setting and results in a blade that is easy to sharpen.  Woodjoy Tools makes all the blades for it's growing line of spokeshaves of a dozen different models.

The flagship product is the Master Spokeshave, a sleek, versatile, professional shave that is designed to be compact yet robust. This tool received best in class honors in a Fine Woodworking evaluation. See Choosing and Using Spokeshaves" Fine Woodworking #185 July/August 2006.

Other product include bowsaws, marking guages, and squares and user's of Glenn tools love to voice their opinions! Opinions and reviews have appeared in Fine Woodworking, The Windsor Chronicles, Wooden Boat, and Furniture & Cabinetmaking among others From Mike Dunbar himself in the Windsor Chronicles... "Woodjoy has developed a bow saw that is every bit as good as mine.  It too, has all the features needed to do the work a Windsor chairmaker requires."  High praise from one of the true masters.

A bit about the craftsman himself… Glenn and his family live in a small town 50 miles south of Boston and 15 miles east of Providence, RI near the coast. He enjoys outdoor activities and lately that's been whitewater canoeing and kayaking along the local rivers.

Glenn has an education in business management and a background manufacturing.  Over several years of taking pleasure in the development of new tools, at age 50, the time came to launch a second career as a specialty tool maker.  As a one-man operation most time is shared between the woodworking and metal shops cutting wood, steel, and brass. He enjoys working on ideas for new tools as time permits and has developed methods to teach others how to make professional grade spokeshave as well as other fine tools.

Jim Esten
Cedarburg, Wisconsin

November 2006

 
 


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