Honing Skills and Shaping Wood: A Local Craftsman’s Journey
By Emily Bontrager
National Craft Month is celebrated every March to highlight crafters’ creativity and craftsmanship. Whether a person creates woodworking projects, quilts, sews, or scrapbooks, there are many ways to showcase a person’s crafting skills.
For Chris Smith of Kahoka, MO, woodworking isn’t just a pastime; it’s a lifelong skill that began in high school and grew into a retirement hobby that keeps him busy almost every day.
Smith, 69, first picked up woodworking decades ago as a student at Dallas City High School.
“I started in high school,” Smith said. “But our classes were only 30 minutes long, so by the time you got in the class, got out on the floor, got your tools and started, you didn’t have much time. By my senior year, I got to go to the shop for three or four classes, and I got to work a little bit.”
The class introduced him to the basics of woodworking. Under the guidance of his teacher, Mr. Lewis, Chris learned skills while building small projects like lamps, benches, and napkin holders.
He also learned how to take rough lumber and turn it into smooth, usable boards, a process he still uses today.
“I learned then how to plane wood. Because we had rough wood, you know? So I had to learn how to run it through the planer and make it nice and smooth,” he said.
After graduating, woodworking faded into the background for Chris.
“Once I got out of high school, the first 10 to 12 years, I didn’t really do much,” he said.
That changed after he married his wife, Delma.
“I told her, I’m going to get into woodworking again,” Chris said.
By 1997, he began buying tools and building projects once more, starting with entertainment centers and display cases.
“I never did think I was going to make a living at it,” he said. “And since I’m now retired, I’m out in my shop about every day.”
These days, Smith especially enjoys making trinket and jewelry boxes, detailed pieces that require patience and precision.
“This one box that I make, there’s 33 parts. And I don’t like making that one very often. It takes about three and a half weeks to make one of those,” he explained.
Most boxes take him about a week and a half, and he often works on several at once while glue dries between stages. He estimates he’s made between 75 to 100 boxes so far in the last few years.
Many of his designs start as sketches from his granddaughter Riley.
“My granddaughter, she draws my patterns. I kind of see something I like, and I say, ‘Hey, can you draw something like that?’ She’ll draw it for me. Then I just use that and transfer that over to my wood with some carbon paper, and then I cut it out with my saws.”
Over the years, he’s also built larger pieces, including a handcrafted chair that took a month and a half to complete. Different woods, cherry, oak, and maple, give each project its own look.
His shop is filled with many tools, including a bandsaw, table saw, radial arm saw, joiner, router table, sanders, an air compressor, and plenty of sandpaper and glue. Dust collection is essential, too.
“You have to have a good dust collector. Otherwise, you got dust everywhere,” he said.
But what Smith loves the most about woodworking is the transformation of taking a piece of wood and creating something new.
“You take raw wood that most people would say is garbage or use it for burning wood, and you create something neat. That’s what I like,” he said.
Looking ahead, Smith hopes younger generations discover the same satisfaction in working with wood as he has. For beginners, his advice is simple.
“Buy the best tools you can afford. And when you’re young,” he said.
And above all, he stresses that safety is important.
“Be careful, because sawblades, they have no conscience whatsoever. Woodworking’s a lot of fun, a lot of sanding, a lot of dust, but it’s worth it.”
After years back at the bench, woodworking remains what it has always been for Smith: a fun way to show his creative side and to turn a piece of wood into a piece of art.
