Carl Swensson, who works wood in a modest basement shop in Baltimore, has skills of remarkable depth and diversity. He learned Japanese woodworking well enough to be invited to build the doors for a traditional post-and-beam temple in Kofu, Japan. He’s helped build wooden tracker organs—some of the largest and most complex of musical instruments— and made masterful Danish Modern rockers, Arts and Crafts cabinets, greenwood chairs, and Swedish bowls and spoons. But of all the things he’s made, the most vexing was a humble Swiss milking bucket (top right). “Superficially,” he says, “it’s kind of simple. But underneath that it’s a very sophisticated piece of woodworking.” Making the staves went well, but the hoops were a hair-puller, and he endured one failure after another. He dropped the project for a decade, picked it up and failed again. When he finally figured it out, having amassed a bulging sheaf of notes and sketches, he began building vessels of his own design. About the monumental struggle to build a bucket, Swensson seems almost pleased. “I’m an experimental woodworker,” he says. “I find hard things and see if I can do them.”

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From Fine Woodworking #248

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