The Apprentice's Trail
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For the Hoffman's, woodworking &
the shop came as an afterthought. Once in Virginia, some equipment came up for sale & Razor Ridge Workshop was born. Dave had picked up the beginnings of the trade from an elderly gentleman who had a shop in Little Italy. Even here, amongst aged Manhattan brownstones, the old Appalachian music crept up on him . . . |
Little Italy - Manhatten, NY
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While in the small, Little Italy
basement shop, Dave developed designs & fixtures for two common dulcimer types - the hourglass & the teardrop. The dulcimer's roots run deep in Appalachian lore. It often provided the only accompaniment to ancient ballads, whose roots reached back across the Atlantic - to homelands & motherlands - |
Hoffman Teardrop Dulcimer
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Sherry started offering piano
lessons, and since she was also a skilled tuner, she began tuning her student's pianos in their home; which evenually led to a considerable number of regular customers. |
Giving Lessons
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So, once or twice a month, Sherry
would go onto Grayson County's backroads to make her tuning rounds. This led to her doing minor repairs in the field, and ultimately to the shop doing major renovations on mostly the older uprights. |
Tuner's Route - Beyond Where the Pavement Ends
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I took a keen
interest in the pianos and wound up doing alot of the rebuilding of the actions and their consquent regulation with the keyboard. |
A Piano's Action & Keys
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Every now & then, though,
I would have the opportunity to take apart & fix real pieces of furniture. Older, primitive pieces with rich patinas & strewn with such thoughtful joinery, that I expect it was pieces such as these that kept me prying into the ways of the Woodwright. |
Slant Top Desk - Maple
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Slant Top Desk close-up
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Slant Top Desk, Mule Ear chair, Walnut Corner Cupboard
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