Benchmarks: The Education of Michael Fortune
A Fine Balance
May 06, 2019
In 1970 I was in the furniture design program at Sheridan College outside of Toronto, Canada. The program was set up to train designers for the furniture manufacturing industry in Canada. A steady stream of young, well-known ambitious designers made up the rotating part-time staff. A constant was an elderly Italian born technician who oversaw the workshop and the often half-crazed students attempting to fabricate prototype ideas for the various product design assignments. Even as a 19-year-old first year student I could see Bruno Armellin possessed a calm attitude amid the chaos that could only come from the fact he had confidence in his abilities to solve any fabrication challenge that came his way. Bruno helped set up this program in the days of unlimited spending on colleges. His workshop had the latest in European woodworking equipment with one exception, a well-used Rockwell 20-in. bandsaw. He often spoke of its…
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Comments
I follow Mr. Fortune and have always been quite impressed with his depth of knowledge and readiness to share it with those of us with less time in the trade/hobby. Thank you kindly, fine sir, for your good heart.
i made the roller stand a while back. i use it daily with my table saw and with my band saw especially when i am resewing. it works great. but, anything MF suggests making works great.
when i move to my new shop next year i plan to make another
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