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Comment by evandev | Hacker News Reader

Don't forget that Roy Underhill in the Woodwright's Shop on PBS is also an intellectual predecessor to people like Paul Sellers.

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Oh my goodness, if there was ever a reason to donate monthly to PBS, it’s for the old episodes of the Woodwright’s shop on their “PBS Passport” service.

That show, apart from being educational, is gentle and warm in the same was that the late great Bob Ross makes people feel from his show. It’s salve for the soul.

I discovered that they had many seasons of The Woodwright's Shop on pbs.org freely available while dealing with a bout of the stomach flu. That show is great. Even my three year old daughter enjoys it.

When I was a kid my parents took me on a trip to Williamsburg, Virginia. My Dad is an amateur woodworker and while we were walking down a dirt road in the colonial district area, Roy Underhill was working alone in the front yard of one of the houses and my father recognised him (he's a huge fan of The Woodwright's Shop) and walked over to say hello and thank him. He was a great guy, super friendly and totally cool about talking shop. I took of picture of them together that I still have.

Anyway, without that PBS show I would have never gotten into hand-tooled woodworking.

Oh man, what a great story! I’m usually scared to meet my heroes, because I don’t want to be disappointed. Glad to know Underhill was able to live up to you and your dad’s expectations.

I always wanted to see a crossover episode that had both Roy Underhill and Norm Abrams -- two extreme opposite ways of woodworking (hand tools vs cool power toys). Would be really entertaining to see how they would approach a similar project.

Roy Underhill is so damn good. I guess I thought I'm the only person that used to watch that show.

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