Elia Bizzari - Hand Tool Woodworking

January has been a busy month for me. Last weekend, I went to Colonial Williamsburg to give a talk on the Samuel Wing chair.  At the end of two 90-minute sessions my friend Jerome Bias (who was also presenting at the conference) came up on stage to help me assemble the back.  It was an especially recalcitrant back, so my wife Morgan also came up to help:

Both presentations were fun, and I was quite happy (thanks to planemaker Steve Slocum for both photos):

Earlier in January, I drove to northern VA to buy an automatic knife grinder for grinding our travisher and reamer blades.  I’ve been having local grinding shops do this grinding, but it seems time to move it to my shop.  This grinder is as big as a lathe, so we need a spot to put it.  Hence, some machines for sale.  The best is first – my very first lathe, now owned by Seth Elliott who makes the travishers and tenon cutters that I sell.  Here’s what he has to say about it:

For Sale: A Powermatic 90—Elia’s First Lathe

The tool-making section of Hand Tool Woodworking, where I spend my time, is an enclosed shed with big sliding doors off the back of Elia’s main shop. It’s got a little Jotul wood stove and a great view of the woods. Ironically, we use several power tools to make our hand tools and have intentionally housed most of them in this back shop area to keep the noise and dust somewhat isolated. With a 24″ planer, 14″ band saw, table saw, steam box, spindle sander, belt/disc sander, router, grinder, lathe, and drill press, space is at a premium.

Still, for the past couple years Elia has graciously allowed me to store his old pea-green Powermatic 90 lathe against one wall. He originally purchased this lathe in 2004, did put a single-phase motor in it, and turned on it for fifteen years until selling it to me after scoring his massive Wadkin pattermaker’s lathe. I used it for a few years in my own shop that I had set up in an elderly neighbor’s outbuilding down the street from me. After she passed, and I had to break-down that shop, we moved it back to Elia’s shop with the intention of replacing the small Delta lathe I had been using there. My lathe use for the toolmaking is limited, however, and it makes sense for Elia to keep the Delta—a somewhat-mobile lathe—for the occasional demo. So, I’ve decided to stop letting the Powermatic collect dust and instead get it into the hands of someone who will use it.

I had plans to save it for another permutation of my own shop on my own property, but that project will not be happening any time soon and Elia has just bought a metal grinder that needs that wall space in the tool-making shop. Sorry as I am to see it go, it makes the most sense at this time.

It’s an excellent lathe. The Powermatic Company in Tennessee made the PM90 from 1955 to1998. There’s a great thread on its history on the OWWM.org website. Its owner’s manual and parts list can be found on the same site. From that, it looks like this one is from 1961. These lathes became popular for use in high-school shop classes and gained a reputation for standing up to less-than-careful use. It weighs in at 600 pounds and is therefore quite stable. It has a variable speed lever that shifts easily from1000 to 4000 rpm. This one is currently set up with a 1 hp motor and a single-phase, 220v connection. Also included, in addition to original metal tool rest stand (minus the tool-rest itself), is a longer wooden one that Elia built for turning chair parts and also a sturdy tool stand/rest for outboard turning.

Asking price is $1500. The buyer will need a way to load the lathe as we have no lift.

Contact Seth for more info.

I (Elia) am also selling a couple machines. The first is a drill press. It was Peter Ross’s first drill press that he bought in the 80’s. I bought it from him when I moved into my current shop, and it became my first drill press. The motor promptly burned out, so I put a nice 3/4hp, 110v Dayton motor on it and we’ve made thousands of tools on it since. It runs great and has a couple nice features: a very nice quick-set depth stop and a table crank. But it’s a little small for our work and the quill has some run-out, which can cause vibration when drilling metal and reaming large holes (read tenon-cutters). So I recently bought a bigger Powermatic drill press (also from Peter) and this one’s got to go.

$150

When I bought my automatic knife grinder, the owner had five pedestal grinders he was also selling. On impulse, I bought the best one, and immediately regretted it. Not that it’s not a nice grinder – it’s much quieter and better-built than mine. But do I really want to spend time tearing my grinding setup apart and putting it back together again? No! So I’m selling this grinder for what I’ve got in it.

$250

I just finished teaching my last class of the year, on 18th Century Chairmaking. A highlight for me was a trip to our local auction house to view a turn-of-the-19th-Century bow back chair made by the McKim Brothers of Richmond, Virginia (photo from the Leland Little website):

The auction-house folks were gracious enough to allow me to trace the very nice, sculptural seat:

I made a copy of the seat during class the next day and intend to offer it as a variation for future students in this 18th Century Chairmaking Class. Teaching this class was fun, and I’m fired up to do it again. Here’s a few classes for next year (there will probably be more next summer and fall, but this is what I’ve got for now):

18th CENTURY LOOP BACK SIDE CHAIR
March 23rd to 28th, 2026 (at my shop)
May 4th to 9th, 2026 (at my shop)

TRADITIONAL WHEELBARROW w/ PETER ROSS & ELIA BIZZARRI
October 5th-10th, 2026 (at my shop)

I’m doing the lottery system again:  email me by 8am on Thursday (December 18th) to be entered into the lottery for the class(es) you want.  After that, any class opening will be available for purchase through the website shopping cart.

Hope to see you next year!

I’ve accumulated another attic full of chairs since my previous chair sale four years ago. Many were built in classes – both online and in-person – while others came from changed orders. Most of these chairs are unfinished and can be painted to your specifications. I am offering a discount on them for the month of December. I can ship them anywhere in the US. Details below:

I have three loop back side chairs with baluster turnings that I made in classes that I taught this year. But things don’t always go according to plan in a class: one chair is first-rate, one has a seat that cracked during glue-up and I fixed with glue and three walnut butterflies on the seat bottom, one has a back that’s a few degrees more vertical than the plans call for (not sure how that happened!). The cracked seat is perfectly sound now, and the upright chair is quite comfortable if you like sitting upright. All are ready to be painted to your specifications. $1200 each (usually $1400)

I built this Velda’s chair in my online class with Curtis Buchanan. All the parts are white oak, except a butternut seat: I intended to paint it black-over-red, leaving the butternut seat showing through, but now you get the choice. I don’t have the right photo, so this one of a walnut and butternut version will have to do.  $2700 (usually $3000)  

A customer ordered four Pete’s Stools, then decided she wanted stools with backs. So I have four Pete’s stools ready for paint.  $600 each (usually $700).

I made this birdcage side chair ten or twelve years ago.  I put flats on some of the parts, intending to get a decorative painter to do fancy things to it.  But the decorative painter disappeared and I threw it in the loft half finished.  I finally got the back on it a few weeks ago and it’s ready for paint (but you’re stuck with my limited skills).  $1600 (usually $1800)

Reproduction of an early 19th Century writing arm chair in the Dewitt Wallace Museum at Colonial Williamsburg.

I’ve saved the best for last.  This is a copy of a chair in the Colonial Williamsburg collection, attributed to William Challen of Lexington, KY (he was in NY before that, where he has the first known ad for a fancy chair, a style of early 19th. chairs that became intensely popular).  Seth and I spent two days measuring the chair, we came home and spent a couple months learning how to build it, then we did a presentation on it at the Working Wood symposium in January 2020.  I turned everything on a pole lathe, bored all the holes with spoon bits, then Williamsburg’s conservator Chris Swan spent a couple weeks finishing it with period paints.  The black marks are called smoke graining – you hold the chair, painted in half-wet paint, up to a candle and the soot adheres to the paint in swirling clouds. I signed a contract that I would not make any more of these, so this chair is truly unique and will remain so.  $5000 (usually $6500)

I’ve been making wooden hay rakes today, which has given me the opportunity to try some new techniques. Here is a short video about making the rake tines using an old method that’s new to me. (Is this is my first foray into vlogging?): 

You can watch the Romanian rake maker where I learned this technique here.