Remembering Niki

mike marvel

Member
Messages
268
Location
So. Florida
Some of you may remember our member Niki. He was a very unique individual that enjoyed woodworking and developing jigs and fixtures all shop made with common hardware items.

I posted this tribute to him while he was still alive:
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I would like to say a special thanks to Niki for the efforts and thinking that goes into his posts. All we see is descriptive pictures and text about a jig or process. What we don't always think about is what he went through to do that. We aren't aware of all the time in developing the idea and all the parts involved. We aren't involved in actually experimenting and using the jig or item through all the trials and errors of working out the bugs. We can't really fathom the set-up for the photography and making pictures that good. We don't think about loading up all those pictures in his computer, and arranging them and then working out all the text that he prints on them.

And then keeping track of each set of pictures and posting them in correct order. His whole process is really bewildering if you consider all he goes through just for us. I can't think of any single individual that goes to such extremes to offer help or display such creativity, for our benefit. Not only are his posts directed to help in accuracy, but also with safety in mind. His posts and tutorials are as professionally done as anything I've seen on the internet.

I've read responses to a few of his posts that said something like "They already have a jig similar to that one at XYZ sales". The whole point to his work is to improve work skills and not to go out and spend a lot of money to buy something that you could make in your shop.

I'll be posting this in other forums, so you can have a chance to read it again.

At times the responses are minimal. So, I'm dedicating this tribute to Niki, and saying thank you for each and every post and hope that you continue. I keep telling you to write a book. Save the first autographed copy for me.


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For anyone wishing to read the comments to this post, you can see them here.



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i do remember him mike and i think vaughn is working with his widow on a book of his work.. i too asked for one of those books from him when he was still doing ok,,enjoyed talking with him threw email..miss him alot..he will be remembered mike:thumb::thumb:
 
I too remember Niki, a real gent. :)
And thanks for posting Mike, I hope
lots of members new and old take the time
to read your tribute and comments
on the link you have shared. :thumb:
 
I not only remember him but I also had the chance of applying some of his techniques. He took a lot of effort in making his post so easy to understand that just following them you get a success.
 
Did anything ever develop on the book effort?
Unfortunately, the book was never published. The only photos that Niki's widow had were very low resolution and not usable for a book. It appears Niki deleted his full-res photos once they were reduced in size for his online posts, since neither his widow nor his son were able to find any on his computer. Someone on one of the woodworking forums (I don't recall which one, it's been a lot of years) had put together a post with links to all of the posts he did on that forum.

I did create a draft of the book back in 2010. It's essentially just the photos from many of his posts (but not all of them, apparently), but it's missing all the text in Niki's forum posts. I had sent this to Niki's widow, but never heard back from her. I updated it tonight to add Mike Marvel's tribute to Niki (in the first post of this thread). I'll try to upload it here so others can at least see the photos. Be forewarned it's a pretty big file, since the draft of the book is 275 pages long.
 

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