Norm Abrams in 2023
 

I spent a lot of Saturday afternoons, watching the PBS trifecta of
The Woodwrights Shop (I always thought this guy was going to lose a hand)
This Old House,
and
The New Yankee Workshop

YouTube has recently started showing all of the seasons of TNYW, and today there was a short video catching up with a couple of old projects and maybe a hint that they might start showing new stuff? I think that'd be pretty cool.

Norm is awesome and he seems to be just as sharp as he ever was, 30 years on!

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I loved watching Norm and learning from him. My carpentry skills really improved and I was inspired to do many remodeling projects on my old house that I never would have tried otherwise.

Just need a 2k ft conditioned workshop with dust collection, 100k in heavy equipment, and wood that doesn't twist into pretzels.

Timely thread!

Just the other day I got all my stuff together to continue the garden bench construction work I started last year, if you recall. I only made one of the benches before moving onto other stuff, but always intended to bust out the other three, that I had bought the materials for.

Sometimes life gets in the way of doing our little projects....but I think it's important to get back to them to get that all important closure.....

I've got signed photos from both Norm and Scott Phillips (the Woodwright guy.) Scott signed his photo something like "taking woodworking beyond the norm!" - which was obviously a ding against Norm. Not many woodworkers walk around with a carpenters tool pouch and use a nailgun on every project.

When I was a kid, I'd watch saturday morning cartoons. At about 11:00 am, when "Soul Train" came on, it was time to to walk over to the TV, turn it off, and go out and play.

As an adult some years ago, these woodworking shows really were the same ritual. I forgot how much I missed them. I'd wait in suspense as the inspector would sign off on some electrical outlets on "This old house"

Add in "Click and Clack Tappert brothers car guys" on the radio, and my life is complete.

When I was a kid, my father watch Norm and TOH religiously. I didn't get it.

Now: Roku has all the seasons for free and I have been working my way through them. Good craftsmanship is universal no matter when it was filmed.

Don't get me started on how much I love old Click and Clack episodes.

Back 25 years ago there was a big tool store opening and they brought Norm in for meet and greet and autographs. He was treated like royalty. He had handlers and a limo. I won a worm-drive Skilsaw. Still have it.

When I was ca. 11-18 in Atlanta in the 80s to early 90s, my typical Saturday would be my dad taking me to Auto Motif in Smyrna, where he’d have to drag me out after hours, then home to watch Motor Week followed by This Old House. My sweetie and I were just talking about this the other day and she was teasing me for being a little old man when I was a kid. i love Motor Week reruns and I’d certainly watch an old TOH rerun with Bob and Norm.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGbODsB87yI

I hate/hated Norm...he is a pox, COVID 20, an all around awful and disgusting person in flannel.

"This Old House" and "The New Yankee Workshop" are subversive; 30 minutes of senseless accomplishment that NO ONE can replicate in real life.

I got your tool belt, RIGHT HERE Norm!

"Honey, Norm is building a chair out of toothpicks and evanescent advice...can we?"

I hate Norm:cool:

^ ha ha, I know what you mean. When he's building furniture on New Yankee Workshop I wonder how many viewers actually tackle the project. He's actually a really nice guy who really knows his stuff. I worked on a This Old House project over 20 years ago in SF. It was a 100 year old small church being converted to a single family dwelling by a couple. Poor Norm is a rock star and doesn't really enjoy that. On a non camera crew day a few of us decided to walk to lunch and people kept coming up to him "Hey, aren't you Norm Abrams?) His standard answer (smiling) " no, I get that all the time". And he is mortal! he mis-drilled the old original doors for new hardware (anyone can screw up) but like a true craftsman came up with a solution to remedy. This project was post Bob Villa days and suffice to say that Bob wasn't Norms favorite person though he is too classy a guy to actually say it.
BTW, This Old House projects aren't done in the short amount of time they appear to be done on TV

Plenty of hacks out there with a large shop full of tools that can't cut a straight line or cut a tight mortise for a tenon. And plenty of craftsmen with just a handful of tools that produce museum pieces.

It's the archer, not the bow.


Norm definitely caused people like me to go out and buy a tool or two. I've still got my PC routers, a PC 4" trim saw and a (DeWalt) biscuit joiner that I bought because those tools were good enough for Norm. And I think he was the first person on tv to proclaim that you can't have enough clamps. If tool mfg's wanted to treat him like royalty, I'm sure it was for a good reason. I doubt if he insisted on handlers and a limo. He seemed to be able to keep his ego in check for someone who was as skilled as he is.



So, you're saying your wife wishes you were handy, rather than handsome?

I love Norm...and the various shows he was on.

But, honestly, could he have bent a nail, just once...a little something for the wood butchers watching?

Well he did build a prototype for every project. He was smart and bent all his nails out of the glare of the lights.

And, boy, I bet the outtakes from TNYW would be fun to watch!

Norm is the bomb!

I bought a rusty Craftsman Tablesaw from a buddy for $25 years back. Coincidentally, Norm had an episode on NYWS on re-habbing a table saw the same day. It involved de-scaling rust with a 3M pad and WD40, washing / cleaning with soap & water, and then waxing with paste floor wax.

I did this and have enjoyed my saw for over a decade. No rust and it has done lots of cool little jobs.

Like some of the others have posted, my Saturday mornings were taken up with This Old House and The New Yankee workshop. No better way to spend a winter Saturday morning.