As someone who has been lurking for an embarassingly long time
(suffice it to say that I have a first-run Galoot hat--maybe Paddy
should have made a bio a requirement to buy one?), it is time to post
my bio. I joined oldtools before becoming a complete handtool
convert. My killfile for wreck.ww was already set up to delete all
articles except those from a few people (Leach, O'Deen, and Lamantia
come to mind) who were mostly charter members of oldtools anyway, so I
thought I would spend less time and get more enjoyment from oldtools.
I have since become convinced that I want to do as much as possible by
hand.

I am a typical computer doink who became interested in woodworking by
watching His Normness and by seeing furniture in stores that was crap.
Initially, I think my wife believed my exclamations of "I can build
that better". After many promises and few completed projects, she now
just rolls her eyes. I have actually managed to complete a few
projects (mostly using p*wer tools, I'm sorry to say), though through
some quirk most of them have been gifts so there is not much evidence
around the house that I've produced anything. (I think it is because
gifts tend to have hard deadlines.)

I have had two hand tool epiphanies:

1) A plane is better than a routah. I was knocking together a
quick-and-dirty bookcase built out of (sorry) birch plywood. I glued
maple edging on either side of the plywood. The plywood fit into a
rabbet on the maple (the maple was about 1.5 inches wide) to create a
big wide "U-beam" so that the shelves would not sag (and to hide the
edges of the plywood). I made the rabbet wider than the plywood was
thick and so had to trim it flush. As I was pondering how to balance
my routah with a flush-trim bit on the skinny edging, a bolt of
lightning struck me and I had a vision of Patrick Leach ranting about
planes on wreck.ww. I grabbed a #220 block plane (it is not very
old--it has a *sticker* that says "220", for God's sake) and soon was
easily, safely and *quietly* creating maple shavings. It was great.
Big clunky shaving that dropped like a rock (needed to learn a little
about plane tuning & hang time), but it was still great. I even took
a shaving upstairs to show my wife who kindly made the appropriate
appreciative noises.

2) A scraper is better than nasty chemicals. The interior doors in
our house must be the late 40s equivalent of the hollow core door: a
frame of what looks like douglas-fir surrounding a single large
plywood panel. They were originally varnished and later painted. The
paint is peeling off the varnish in large sheets. The doors are still
nicer than anything that we could afford to buy now, so we don't want
to replace them. We have started stripping them to be repainted (no
clear finish because the rotary-cut plywood panels are not that
attractive). The paint comes off easily (maybe with a little
encouragement from a heat gun). The varnish won't come off with heat,
it just instantly gums up s*ndpaper, and it laughs at "safe"
strippers. It will come off with nasty chemicals, but I don't like
that very much. After delaying working on the doors for a long time
because I don't enjoy chemical stripping, I was finally struck by
another bolt of lightning and tried a scraper. Voila! No noise, no
fumes, no dust. Just slightly burned thumbs (I think I want to buy a
#80).

We now have two boys, age 2 years and 6 months so my time devoted to
woodworking has been even less than BC (before children). I have
mostly given up on producing anything specific, instead treating any
woodworking time as R&R. As such, I want to relax making shavings
rather than loud noises and sawdust. My handtool inventory is pitiful
(for example, my planes consist of the previously-mentioned #220 and a
Handyman #4 (which is missing the knob)), so I am going to slowly
build up a better selection of higher-quality tools.

I have received a great deal of enjoyment and knowledge by reading the
list, so I want to say thanks to all you galoots. I hope to
contribute some more, though initially in the form of clueless newbie
questions...

andrew
[140 lines to say "Hi. My name is Andrew and I used to use power tools".]