Hello everyone.

      My woodworking training and experience consists primarily of helping 
out on stage at my former theatre job and fixing up our old house, saving & 
restoring the yellow pine millwork wherever possible. SWMBO and I bought 
this 8 room, 1400 sq. ft. mining company house almost 25 years ago, 
figuring we could do maybe a room a year.  I just finished up the last room 
in September, so Ill leave you to do the math.  Our entire current 
(re)mortgage (4th?, 5th?) wouldn't buy the average kitchen remodel on a TV 
home improvement show. There is a lot to be said for being a pathological 
cheapskate.

     I'm mostly a lurker, but bubble to the surface several times a year to 
join the discussion.  Now that Ive finished graduate school, I may have a 
little more free time to participate. In the hand tool department, I have 
acquired many rummage sale specials along the way, made some key purchases 
from fellow galoots, a certain internet auction service, and antique 
malls.   By now, I have fitted out a small working museum of a shop that 
would no doubt be the envy of an apprentice cabinet maker 100 years ago.

   I have the usual cast of tailed apprentices and two distinct sets of 
hand tools, one from the craft shop era (mostly wood-bodied tools ~pre 
1880), and one from the Industrial Revolution (mostly cast iron ~1860 
to1925). Tool collecting has afforded me the opportunity to study the 
accelerating pace of social and technological change over the past two 
centuries in literally a first-hand manner. I occasionally use tools that 
belonged to my great-great grandfather who emigrated from Ireland just 
prior to The Great Famine and tools that were made when Jefferson was 
president and George III was king. Tools of more recent vintage see 
everyday use. Much of my work wont win any golden hammer awards, but Ive 
made a few respectable pieces here and there.

   My shop is relatively small (~370 sq ft), and has a low ceiling (6'2") 
with an intruding beam. Weve met. (And you thought sharp spinning blades 
were dangerous!) The concrete floor is the perfect temperature for beer 
storage. My bench is an old Post Office dump table that I bought for $15 at 
a surplus disposal auction. With a 1" maple top and oak frame, it's 3' x 6' 
and approx 32" high. I braced the legs and added a full-size plywood shelf 
at 12" high to keep the table from wracking. Gravity is our friend.

      I ran across an acme 1 1/4 " bench screw at a rummage sale ($1) and 
made a front leg vise with it. You can clamp a 2x4 in the vise and pick up 
the bench with it. Nowadays, this would take several friends and beer. I 
also added an imported quick-release 9" bench vise on the end (the most 
expensive item).  I acquired the pieces and did the work when I had more 
time than skill or money.  This whole affair ain't pretty, but it will 
outlive the house.  I've never regretted telling someone I built it myself 
- especially my dad who decided I needed to take Latin instead of wood shop 
35 years ago. He's "really" impressed!

           We're located in western upper Michigan near Lake Superior 
(arguably the world's most efficient snow-making machine) in an old copper 
mining region, and home to the deepest mines (now defunct) in North America 
at over 9,000 ft deep.  Only the South African diamond pipes are deeper.  I 
guess we share some responsibility for the ascendancy of the Normites in a 
way, because the copper from the mines up here made the wire that 
electrified America during the industrial revolution.

     I appreciate the good-natured ribbing that goes on in this discussion 
group as well as the respect and consideration given to well-intended 
novices asking for advice.  The tone is as important as the content.  It 
speaks to my sentiments about the whole purpose of doing things by hand.  I 
work with hand tools for aesthetic reasons as well as dust and noise 
abatement, and also because I make mistakes a "lot" slower with hand 
tools.  Many good things in life have come to me too easily, so I find 
spiritual contentment in creative manual labor.

Best Wishes

Jim O'Brien

"...the value and interest of life is not so much to do conspicuous 
things...as to do ordinary things with the perception of their enormous 
value."    - Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin