Printer-Friendly
Email this Story
Post a Comment (0)
Woodworker Wows Warrenton
Woodworker Wows WarrentonFurniture restoration, custom designs Poulin's specialties
By Betsy Burke Parker
Special to the Times-Democrat
Squinting slightly, Erl Poulin measures a tiny wooden leg for the antique letterbox lying in pieces over on his workbench.
He makes a nearly invisible turn with a sharp cutting tool. A sliver of wood floats away, joining other shavings and detritus littering the concrete floor.
Poulin narrows his eyes. “There,” he says with the finality of an artisan whose task is complete.
He sets the delicate item with seven others, orderly beside the wooden box, faded from years of use but painted to look like a miniature grand piano. The scent of fresh sawdust permeates the air.
Though traffic rumbles by noisily on the bypass, Poulin remains focused. “See?” he says, turning another exquisite leg in hands roughened by decades working with some of nature's hardest product. “I can make hand-cuts to within a sixty-fourth of an inch. You can't get a sixteenth with a power tool.”
Poulin's latest antique restoration project may be delicate work, but he handles woodwork of all types at Warrenton Workshop, specializing in antique and fine furniture restoration and repair. Poulin also builds some furniture and outdoor garden items on consignment at his new shop.
Creativity and passion for woodworking runs strong in Poulin's blood — his grandfather was a master woodworker, creating projects as small as tiny wood toys to as large as the entire flooring system for a bowling alley.
“I have always had a passion for woodworking, and am blessed to have inherited some of my grandfather's woodworking skills,” Poulin said, taking a rare moment off from the many projects lining the floor of his Garrett Street shop near downtown. Erl is short for Erling, the name of his woodworking Norwegian grandfather.
Poulin is keenly aware that though modern power equipment is necessary to his trade — he gestures to the radial-arm saw at one corner of his shop and the scroll saw in another — he firmly believes his hands contain more power, more precision than any electric or gas-powered machinery.
“I've kept some of granddad's hand tools, which I still use lovingly on occasion,” he said.
Poulin moved to Warrenton three years ago. The 55-year-old was born and raised in suburban Prince Georges County, Md.
Poulin was posted to a Marine base in Kansas City, Missouri after he enlisted during the Vietnam conflict. He worked in computer networking, easily handling the nascent technology contained in the clunky mainframe as big as his entire woodworking shop.
Though he remained in technology, Poulin soon began to dabble in woodworking, using his granddad's tools and the skills passed down from generation to generation.
Poulin long served as president of the Kansas City Woodworking Guild, a professional brotherhood whose outreach Christmas project created hand-carved wooden toys for underprivileged children.
“We built over 180,000 [wooden] toys for the United Way,” Poulin said, from spinning tops to working toy cars. “We also taught basic woodworking skills, such as building birdhouses and jewelry boxes to [the] developmentally disabled.”
Poulin restored a few pieces of furniture for friends, developing a knack for restoration and woodwork. Poulin relished the precision of the cuts, the joy in creation.
He came to Warrenton in 2006; his sister lives nearby in Amissville. He soon tapped into the local woodworking network, picking up a few odd jobs but dreaming of opening his own workshop.
Warrenton Workshop opened in April. Though he specializes in restorations, Poulin “can build anything” — he's done rockers and gliders and swings for porches, prayer pews, an usher's desk and a wooden cross for his church, wooden toys, garden gates and more.
In his limited spare time, he creates painted wooden cutout name puzzles for kids, an intricate single-cut into a flat piece of hardwood with drop-in letters to spell a child's name. They're hugely popular, Poulin said, and fun to make.
His biggest project so far in Warrenton is a stunner — an eight-foot garden gate for Lomar Farm fashioned after one at the formal gardens at the Highgrove estate of England's Prince Charles.
His work ranges from about $10 for the name cutouts to nearly $4,000 for the custom garden gate.
Poulin loves to work with hardwoods such as walnut and mahogany, but he appreciates the tight grain and density of cypress, a softwood with many hardwood qualities. Ipe, “so hard that it'll dull your tools,” is another favorite.
Warrenton Woodworks is located at 91 Garrett Street. Reach Poulin at (540) 347-4281 or by e-mail at Erl.Poulin@yahoo.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment.