*editor’s note: You’ll notice this video just starts—no intro, no fanfare. It was all too good to cut. 

Peter Follansbee, the youngest of five children, grew up in Weymouth, Massachusetts. When he was 17, he inherited his father’s shop full of power tools. An artist, he began learning to use the table saw and other things to make picture frames. Then one thing led to another. He dropped out of art school in 1976. Then he began learning traditional woodworking in 1980 in Jennie Alexander’s second chairmaking course at Drew Langsner’s Country Workshops. From there, he gave away all of his power tools and spent over 20 years making reproduction furniture at Plimoth Patuxet Museums (then Plimoth Plantation), the living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts. When he isn’t woodworking he is spending time with his wife and two children or watching birds.