Their mission is to create a forum for the understanding, education, and appreciation of American period furniture. They offer a variety of activities and materials to American period furniture professionals and hobbyists including a mid-year conference, regional chapter meetings, and an annual journal, American Period Furniture. Membership in SAPFM, a volunteer-driven, not-for-profit 501(c)(3), is offered to all with an interest in period furniture. Conservators, collectors, students, professionals, serious hobbyists and amateurs will all find something of value here.

As the knowledge of carpentry, cabinetmaking, joinery, and other various forms of woodworking grows amongst the current generation of practitioners we hear more and more about specific tools that were once made, were once common, and now are referred to only in the misty eyes of craftsman. We read that if we had this particular thing or that particular thing our work would be so much better. Many of these desirable tools have been reproduced in questionable quality or have been snapped up by collectors so that the only affordable samples are not very good. The purpose of this site is to provide what any good museum should provide: A knowledge-base of museum quality tools and a description of tools and techniques that once existed but are now gone. A museum should not be a fossilized, nostalgic look back to the past, so we hope to show how older tools can help you to be a better woodworker.

Raymond, an avid historian,  is writing an online History of Woodworking, with a particular focus on amateur woodworking.  An ongoing project, the history will consist of a decade-by-decade historical narrative comprising 12 chapters, a glossary of wide ranging woodworking terms including their historical origins, appendices that explore topics related to woodworking history, and selected primary sources  including vintage woodworker’s manuals, catalogs of old hand-held  tools and bench top machines, and historical documents.