Keynote for March - Serge Roberge
(article taken from Benchmark, newsletter of the
Vancouver Island Woodworkers’ Guild, April, 2005)

Our keynote for March was as I saw for myself unbelievable. Serge Roberge is a true master of modeling and quite a number of members in attendance used words like amazing and incredible in describing Serge’s work. His keynote presentation was very well organized and Serge wins the award for sheer determination and tenacity. His models take from 150 hours at the low end to 300 plus hours to complete. Serge showed us what it takes to do this type of work right from the beginning. He goes to the machine that he will model and begins by taking pictures and dimensions. This then translates into a detailed drawing – one he showed took about 40 hours to do.

His Grade 12 Drafting comes in very handy for this work, but he has moved way beyond those humble beginnings. Twenty years of experience then goes into the crafting of these models. Oh, did I mention that they move and with wooden rams simulating the action of the machine’s hydraulics, they pose nicely in any position that you wish to move them to. I wanted to get be small, get into one and go for a spin.

Serge also has a great skill that I have never seen demonstrated. He can talk intelligently and load logs at the same time using one of his grapler models, wow. All the way through the presentation, Serge made what looked like overwhelming problems sound easy and with his friendly speaking style and sprinkled humor, we were all treated to a glimpse of a Master of Models.