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Arts & Entertainment

Former Blue Hills Student's How-To TV Show Enters Second Season [VIDEO]

Tommy MacDonald, Canton resident and former student at Blue Hills Regional Technical School, enters his second season of "Rough Cut with Tommy Mac," a WGBH woodworking how-to television show produced at his workshop in Canton.

When Tommy MacDonald took carpentry classes at in the 1980s, he could not have known his woodworking skills would eventually land him a national television show.

“I thought I was going to end up woodworking when I retired just like everyone else,” MacDonald said at his Canton workshop, during a recent taping of "Rough Cut–Woodworking with Tommy Mac."

His workshop is located at the former site of the , which is now home to .

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“But I had a career-ending injury (working) in the Big Dig at 35 (years of age) and I had to change careers," he said. "It took a few years to get here but we did it.”

The show will start its second season on October 1 and can be seen on WGBH and also on the Create channel.

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Canton Patch was on-site during a recent taping of Episode 5 which will air at the beginning of November. During this episode, MacDonald and guest star Chuck Bender, (a renowned furniture-maker and mentor at the Acanthus Workshop in Pennsylvania,) were building a drop-leaf table.

“It usually takes us a week or a week and a half to put together one show,” said senior producer Anne Adams from the sound booth.

Ultimately, each 26-minute show includes a detailed yet condensed version of the how-to program, “T-Mac tips” that the average woodworker can use at home (such as the definition of a haunch, how to build a jig, and the importance of using a push stick), a bit of history regarding the piece (Episode 5 will include a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to view pieces that inspired the drop-leaf table,) and a good dose of humor.

The show is meant to appeal to woodworkers of all skill levels, and Kevin Corrigan of Melrose is one of those viewers. Corrigan entered an on-line sweepstakes contest last spring for a behind-the-scenes visit to a filming at the Canton “Rough Cut” studio and lunch with Tommy MacDonald and the crew.

“It’s really impressive,” said Corrigan, who enjoyed woodworking in the past and hopes to resume the hobby when he retires. “I like how he’s using the jig on the table saw for the table legs.”

MacDonald's producer thought the Canton resident was made for TV.

A friend introduced him to Laurie Donnelly, who is now the show’s executive director and producer.

“I immediately thought he would be a great television talent,” Donnelly said. “He was the kind of guy you wanted to hang out with at the shop. He’s very accessible and a good teacher but a regular guy who does museum-quality work."

"We want people to remember that you should have fun," the producer said. "It’s a hobby, and it’s okay to make mistakes, but the main thing is to get the armchair woodworker to enjoy it at home.”

According to his biography, the Canton resident discovered a passion for woodworking in middle school where shop classes and an after-school program fed his growing love for the craft. In ninth grade, MacDonald entered the where he studied carpentry and built a foundation of skills that serves him to this day.

After dropping out, he joined the Carpenters union and in 1985 began a four-year apprenticeship program at the Robert D. Marshall training center in Millbury. MacDonald finished the program in 1989, earned his journeyman's certificate and then went on to earn his Massachusetts supervisor's license in 1991. MacDonald busied himself with the carpenter's life, working on everything from highways and bridges to windows and doors.

In 1995, he joined the thousands of workers who toiled on Boston's famous Big Dig. One day on the job, MacDonald separated his shoulder swinging a sledgehammer. The injury proved fatal to his career. In 1999, after numerous surgeries and months of rehabilitation, MacDonald's surgeon told him his days of heavy lifting and swinging sledgehammers were over. He would have to find a new line of work.

And so he did.

In 2000, he was accepted to the North Bennet Street School, an internationally renowned craft and trade school in Boston's North End where he spent two years honing his woodworking skills and learning the art of fine furniture making.

Since graduating in 2002, MacDonald has been featured in Forbes Magazine, Fine Woodworking Magazine, Woodshop News and The Boston Globe. His furniture has been displayed at the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Rhode Island School of Design museum, the Concord Museum, Doric Hall in the Massachusetts State House and at his alma mater, The North Bennet Street School.

He started creating fine pieces of furniture and documenting his work on podcasts. He had a viral fan base before he was courted by television producers.

The rest is woodworking history.

In addition to the DVD set, woodworking fans will soon be able to purchase last year’s projects in book form when “Rough Cut - Woodworking with Tommy Mac: 12 Step-By-Step Projects” (By Tommy MacDonald and Laurie Donnelly) is released in November. Pre-orders can be made for $12.21 by clicking here.

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