The Merrill Historical Society will present demonstrations and conversation with master woodworker Mark Duginske on Sept. 13 and 14 at the Merrill History & Culture Center Museum, 100 E. Third St.
A fourth-generation woodworker, Mark will demonstrate the art of woodworking, using techniques from the past. On Friday, Sept. 13 from 1-3 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 14 from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Mark will be demonstrating his woodworking skills on the hour.
Mark’s family has been involved with the woodworking business in central Wisconsin for 148 years. His great-grandfather immigrated from Poland in 1863 as a teenager and worked as a lumberjack. He is the grandson of Peter Duginske, who built the first portable sawmill in Wisconsin, and used the second log from the initial logging to produce buildings, cabinets and furniture. Mark currently makes his living as a woodworker, designer, writer and inventor. He has been a contributing editor to Fine Woodworking Magazine and now writes for a number of magazines, including Fine Woodworking and Architectural Digest. His restoration work in the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in Oak Park, IL has appeared on This Old House and the PBS Frank Lloyd Wright Special. He has nine patents on woodworking tools, and in 2008 he received the national first place Golden Hammer Award for the book The New Complete Guide to the Bandsaw.
Over the last 15 years he has taught woodworking classes for people of all skill levels from Maine to California. Mark has his own woodworking school and is scheduling classes at his Merrill shop, a functional woodworking shop with a variety of table saws, band saws, planers, lathes, routers and other tools.
The public is invited to stop in, see a demonstration or visit with Mark, and take a tour of the new museum. A free will donation is being requested for the program.