Craftsman getting plenty of airtime
<p style="text-indent: 0in;">Thomas MacDonald looks at his life as though they were chapters. He might not be in a rush to turn the page on the current one.
The 42-year-old Canton, Mass., furniture maker is staking his future on piecing together a version of a $13 million Chippendale bombe secretary, originally created in Boston about 250 years ago. It's now housed at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence.
Not only is MacDonald producing this complicated piece of furniture, he's doing it for all to see. His progress is documented on the Rough Cut Show, a video podcast that airs on Bobvila.com. MacDonald films the show, which takes place right inside his downtown Canton shop. Viewers can catch glimpses of drivers passing by on Washington Street during the episodes. Within the month, MacDonald is planning to move to a bigger space within the Draper Knitting facility.
In 2006, MacDonald was awarded Best in Show at the Providence Fine Furnishings Show for his entire body of work.
And while he likes where the show has taken his career, there is nothing easy about producing the 102-inch-tall and 43- inch-wide secretary.
"It's a geometric wonder," he said. "I'm trying to put myself back in 1780. I'm not trying to improve upon it. I'm just trying to put my own spin on it. I haven't been in my comfort zone since I started."
The incredibly complex geometry of the secretary, resembling a hutch with elaborate curvatures, requires him to put away his power tools and pull out a hammer and chisel. And that's no problem for him, since he said hand tools are often more efficient and effective than power tools anyway.
MacDonald's step-by-step journey in constructing the secretary has been well documented in more than 50 Rough Cut Show episodes. When it's all said and done, there likely will be more than 100 episodes, he said.
There's no pulling punches when it comes to the show. The audience sees MacDonald when things are going smoothly but it also sees him when things don't go so smoothly. In one episode, MacDonald makes a mistake that forces him to tear out a whole section-more than a month's worth of work.
"It's the good, the bad and the ugly," he said.
The most recent episode details MacDonald's work on some of the upper shelving of the secretary. The episodes are about 10 to 15 minutes long and not only feature his progress but also offer instructional insight, along with providing viewers with some laughs along the way.
His furniture business, Thomas J. MacDonald Fine Furniture, has been downtown for about three years. Prior to that, he actually built the home at 11 Old Meadow Lane where he lived before selling it to open his furniture shop.
While MacDonald might like this current chapter of his life, it wasn't easy to get through the difficult ones.
Born in Dorchester, MacDonald and his family moved to Canton when he was in the first grade.
He attended Blue Hills Regional Vocational High School but dropped out and never completed school, though he did receive his GED. After leaving school he had some issues with the law and with alcohol-issues that sent him to jail for a month.
"I'm just one of those people who are allergic to alcohol," said MacDonald, who hasn't had a drink since 1988. "Everybody knows somebody who just shouldn't have a drink. I know me."
MacDonald overcame life's difficulties and got himself in line.
"That's what I'm most proud of-staying sober and repairing strained relationships," he said.
Getting his life on track, MacDonald became a carpenter and eventually caught on with a construction crew working at the Big Dig. After 17 years as a carpenter, he had an accident while swinging a sledgehammer and dislocated his shoulder. For three years he toiled with the injury, before his orthopedic told him, then 37, he'd have to do something different.
Enter the North Bennet Street School in Boston's North End.
MacDonald said the school is like the Harvard University of woodworking. He applied and he got in.
That's when things really picked up.