Handcrafted by Clint Harp

Author:Clint Harp
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone

CHAPTER 9

* * *

In the Groove

When I got serious about making tables, my granddad gave me some advice. “If you’ve got a table saw,” he told me, “you can make just about anything.” He had me get a dado blade, which is a stacked blade system for a table saw that allows you to cut a thicker groove, or dado, in whatever you’re cutting. Say you have a board that’s 1 inch thick. If you run it on its edge over a half-inch stacked dado blade, you’ll have a half-inch groove running down the length of the board. Flip the same board on its face and run the opposite edge over the dado blade on both sides, and you’ll be left with a tongue. The same thing can be accomplished using a router with tongue-and-groove bits. It’s a great feeling when those boards snap together just right. Everything fits. All the chaos that was once laid out on the floor is now taking shape. Tongue-and-groove all your boards and then join them together with glue and clamps. A tabletop is born.

The afternoon I met Chip at the gas pump, we chatted for ten minutes or so while our tanks filled up. Then he noticed Kelly and the kids in our SUV. “Listen, take your family home and come back to my shop so we can talk some more.” he told me. I agreed and hopped back in the car. Kelly had figured out who I was talking to, and of course knew about my previous blown and unreturned voicemail, so she was immediately hopeful.

Soon after I dropped the family at home, I met Chip at their office over on Bosque Boulevard—an old Craftsman style house, turned into a workspace, that was the original Magnolia shop. I walked in to find an empty meeting space. A young lady, who I’d later learn was one of Joanna’s design assistants, appeared from around the corner.

“Hi, I’m Kristen,” she said. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I’m Clint,” I told her. “I just met Chip at a gas station and he said to come here and we could talk for a bit.”

“Right!” she said. “Okay, great. Hmmm. Just give me a second and I’ll see if I can find him. What was your name again?”

“Clint,” I said. “Like Clint Eastwood.”

Moments later, Chip appeared. “Hey, bud!” he said. “Come hop in my truck and we’ll drive around for a bit.”

That ride was the shortest three hours of my life. We talked nonstop as he drove all around town, showing me some of the houses he and Joanna—or “Jo-Jo,” as he affectionately called her—had already flipped. He also showed me others they hoped to renovate. He even took me to a housing development he was in the middle of constructing, which was a whole new kind of project for him and his wife. And in between each stop, we connected. About our families. Our lives up to then. Our dreams going forward.

“Jo-Jo has been wanting to add a

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