“I have an unhealthy attachment to this number four plane,” says Will Adams (only half jokingly) about his hundred-year-old Stanley Type 11.
A line of polished block planes and saws lines the north wall of Adams’ barn in Barre Town, home base for Honey Brook Tools and Woodworks. When asked if one really needs so many saws (26 are counted), Adams replies, again only half-jokingly, that it’s really not a question of need.
Just over a year ago, Adams fled his teaching career to follow a passion for woodworking and the freedom and emotional balance it would bring to his life. The business he is building focuses on lovingly crafted hand tools for woodworking, using locally-sourced hardwoods paired with some of the world’s finest blades (for the keen marking tools) or with steel forged by a local blacksmith (screwdrivers and such). He also makes mallets, adjusting hammers, and winding sticks (which are not for winding at all, but for gauging and correcting the trueness of planks). And all of them are stunning and beautiful, just begging to be touched, held, worked with.
“Anything I make needs to be not only highly-functional, but also aesthetically pleasing and inspirational,” Adams says. And it also means that no two tools are ever identical (most are made to order). Except in that they are functionally flawless or your money back.
The barn abuts a beautiful conserved forest, through which flows the Honey Brook for which Adams’ enterprise is named. A perfect setting for this maker’s business.
