A bit of RTC Cabinetmaking history: Alan's butter caddies

Alan Rogers was the backbone of the shop at RTC for twenty-five years. If you had him as a teacher, you never forgot him.

If he made you build a butter caddy, you definitely never forgot that.

“Cabinetmaking is a discipline,” he liked to say, and nothing said discipline like the fiendish little butter caddy.

Producing it pushed the limits of student ingenuity with router jigs. The most possible learning from the least possible material, Alan maintained. Every step required constant attention to cutter rotation, grain direction, and control of the stock. Many a caddy was shattered by a careless feed rate! The project embodied Alan’s ideals: respect for the material, precise set-ups, deep focus during operation.

So when Alan retired in 2019, his colleagues decided to send him off with a butter caddy of his own. We scaled it up to the size of a two-seat bench and gave it legs.

The change in scale brought a few changes in construction methods (including some CNC) but true to Alan’s spirit, everything was built using wood at EMC, sharp cutters, nifty jigs, and... well, actually lots of abrasives in the end.

The mock-up: