Australian Wood Review – June 2017

74 Australian Wood Review

FEATURE

H

ock Tools are well known as

premium quality toolmakers,

specialising mostly in replacement

plane blades, but also in luthier tools,

marking knives and custom orders.

What’s not so well known is how the

creation of these tools came about

through the connection that arose

between company founder Ron Hock

and the legendary woodworker and

author James Krenov.

By the 1980s Krenov was already

famous for his writings on

woodworking and was looking to

settle down from travelling around

North America to promote them. He

had taught some classes in Fort Bragg

and liked it enough to move to there.

The week that Ron and his wife Linda

Rosengarten moved to Fort Bragg to

set up their knifemaking workshop

in the shed in the backyard turned

out to be the same week that James

Krenov’s teaching workshop opened at

a local college. ‘I didn’t know him. My

woodworking experience was turning

a couple of walnut bowls at high school

and doing some carpentry because I

couldn’t afford to hire anyone’, said Ron.

Prior to his move, Ron Hock had, at

the behest of his father, taken on the

family sheet metal business while

also working as a sculptor. ‘We were

living in Monrovia (a Los Angeles

suburb) at the time’, explained Linda.

‘Things weren’t going so well with

the business arrangement with Ron’s

Turning

Point

When Ron Hock met James

Krenov it led to the creation

of the fine edge tools his

brand is synonymous with.

Words and photos:

Linda Nathan