Among the items he crafts are pens made from local woods and some more exotic varieties, like African rosewood and ebony and Italian olive wood. Daggett, when he retired from working as the director of the Elliot Hospital clinical laboratory several years ago, took up wood-turning as a hobby. His workshop, stocked with a ShopSmith and two lathes, is converted from the two-car garage attached to his home off Rattlesnake Road. A ShopSmith is a machine which can be used as a drill press, lathe, circular saw, planer and other functions. The shop, stocked with chunks and bits of wood stacked tidily in bins, is permeated with the scent of pine and rosewood.
Classical music plays softly in the background, audible when the lathes stop turning.
In addition to the pens, Daggett turns bowls and plates with the gentle line and rich texture of grain. Often using wood burls, the bowls, while functional, retain the essence of the tree they originally were part of, with the smooth finished sections contrasting with the rough texture of the bark. In other parts of the shop, half-finished gavels, key chains, plates and ladies' jewelry hangers wait for their turn on the lathe. Daggett, despite the diversity of offerings through his business, returns to pens, which make up approximately 50 percent of his sales at local craft stores. Building his business has, according to Daggett, been an evolutionary process.