Well I read the FAQ, and I understand that I'm supposed to
"lurk" for awhile.
But, it feels wrong to Listen in on other people's
conversation(s) without at least introducing your self.
I also notice in your FAQ that you galoots like a person to
include a "bio" upon first post. Now, I assume that you don't
want my resume but more of a cliff notes version of my life
story. (I.E. just the important, relevant parts) So I'll work from
there.
My name is Roland J Rankin Jr. My family calls me Junior, My
friends call me Rol, and my father is called Roland.Take your
pick I'll answer to any of them. ( I also have quite a few Nick
Names, 'GrassHopper' being one of the ones you can say in
the company of women folk. Apparently, I hop around from
thing to thing, quite a bit when I work, well that's what they
answered, when I asked them how they came up with that
particular name.) If you phone in your lunch, it's better
everyone has an odd nickname. It sticks out in the cooks
mind and your more likely to get a bag with your name on it
that contains what you've ordered.
My father is/was somewhat of a handy man. Until recent years
always worked for himself or his friends companies. So I
started going to work with him about the age of 5. (when I
could behave in public, before that I only got to help with
work that could be taken home, and home repairs and
improvements). We did mostly heating and Air type of work.
Five year olds are great for toting ductwork, and tools in and
out of crawl spaces. For any that may not know a crawl space
is the space between your house, and the ground, usually
muddy, covered with jagged rocks that have a habit of finding
that spot right under your knee-caps. The best of which have
"creepy crickets" (spider looking crickets that move oddly),the
worst of which have lots of spider webs.
We also did allot of plumbing (mostly boilers and houses),
electrical work, installing sprinkler systems, painting, small
construction. Spent allot of summers, behind the wheels of
1940 something called a "Ditch Witch", driving a shovel, but
mostly I was with the creepy crickets.
By 7th grade my father had pretty much lost his business,
(because he had one customer that required all of his / our
time.) The customer paid and all but it is hard to grow a
business when you have only got time for one customer, for
months on end.To save everyone the trouble, He hired him
on to work in his Sod/Horse Farm. They grew 200 acres of
bermuda sod, and had 17 -25 thousand acres, that were to
be turned into grounds for Horse Show Events. (Back when
Olympics came to Atlanta, our Farm was second choice for
holding the horse part of the Olympics, we got the Pan-Am
games events instead. Their little weather station told
us drought was more likely at our farm than theirs, so the
other farm got to hold the Olympics.)
So I came along and furthered my education, to include
tractors, mowers, weed eaters, while spending some time
on construction (horse stalls, apartments, and homes for
long term employee's), destruction (tearing down old
buildings), welding, (fixing stuff).This let me rub shoulders
with rich men, poor men, and men with or without money.
You can learn allot from shoulder rubbing.
Now My father had always said, do a job you can be proud
of. Which as a child I always took to mean do a job he can be
proud of. Along in the story comes Dan and Jeff. If every
there was such a thing as Hippy, New Englander Carpenters
these two would be it. They were called in to put up all the
horse jumps, that the course designer had thunk up. Horse
jumps, need to be built to perfect standards. (Trust me the
last thing you want, is anyone able to own a million dollar plus
horse, that does nothing but run and jump with some one on
their backs, is for said horses to break a leg on a faulty jump.
---Things like that make lawyers rich.)
For me working with Dan and Jeff meant I was regulated
down to "gofer" status, (Gofer this , go for that), so I didn't
really make myself too idle when Dan and Jeff were needing
helpers. I didn't know it at the time but there was no line I
could cut that was straight enough for their caliber of work.
(This was about my freshman year in High School, so the only
straight line I was interested in finding a use for had nothing
to do with wood "working".)
Anyway, they had all of us help Dan and Jeff, up on top of the
office, putting new shingles up. We get about 2/3 of the way
top when Dan comes back from somewhere, and sees our
work. He (Dan) says, "look at that crooked piece of ...." Jeff
comes down moves his round purple sunglasses off his face
and says, "Yah roof isn't square to the wall."
"Whole building is out of square", Dan says ",but look at the
shingles, I'm not putting my name on that!".
The general manager comes over with a , "what is the fuss is
about?". After he hears, he says to just, "screw it we don't have
enough shingles to do it again, besides you can barely tell they are
crooked. Just have them finish it without you."
Dan replies, "You don't understand, I won't put my name on
that roof." Long story short, we ripped the roof off and
started over, under Dan's watchful eye this time. Jeff went to
the hardware store with Dan's credit card and brought back the
shingles needed to finish the job right, paid for on Dan's account.
----- Not too many summers after that I heard that Jeff, went back
to New York City. Apparently he had been sitting on a
Harvard law degree with some type of special honors, that he had
only used to pass the bar exam so far. So he went off give
big city lawyering a go. Go figure, I still am. ----
Back to the story at hand. That's when I understood my father
meant.. "Do a job I can be proud of, even if no one else can see
difference ", So my early twenties I spent mostly hoping from
Job type to job type trying to find work that gave me joy. Met
my wife, and set out to get a sit-down job. (they pay better,
but it's so hard to tell when you've done good work, or work
that's just better than the average lazy man). So for the last
seven years (I'm 32 now), I've been doing computer programming,
doing websites, writing custom software, helping business
applications share data between themselves.
Turns out even though, I really excel at that line of work, my
soul isn't into it. Your never really given an opportunity to "do
the best you can", Mostly it's do what you can in the time
alloted. The faster you get the smaller the time allotment
gets, so you never really get better only faster.
Myself I need to see how well I can do. Can I produce anything
that I am willing to put my name on. That's where I stumbled
onto "galoot" wood working. Something that shows how well
I can do, not how good the tools I can afford are. It's also as
far away from computers as I could get with out taking up
farming.
So on my journey to figure out how to do this type of wood
working, I stumbled onto "The Complete WoodWorker", edited
by Bernard E. Jones, and a couple of Roy Underhill books. I even
went up to Williamsburg, and had a looksee at them and their
methods. (kinda disappointed, was expecting a working town,
with the black smith in the shop all day, and the carpenter in
his all day.) Turns out, only 1 or 2, couple hour shows a day, and
some how I missed them both.
Soon discovered that this journey I was setting out on, is
rapidly losing allot of knowledge, so I had better start figuring
things out on my own. Which lead me to my first discovery. The
only real mistake is to not learn from your errors, If it is wrong
figure out why and how can to prevent it next time. Then back
up and see if you can use the mistake to your advantage. Now
that, you know doing it this way, causes that to happen, try to
find situations where you can put that knowledge to good use.
Now I have a son, I named him G. A. Rolandson. It's kinda
a tribute to my father, sense I am the son of a Roland, and my
son is the son of a Roland, His sons, will be the sons of Roland.
The Rolandson's if you will. Besides, at the rate we are going
won't anyone that knows how to count high enough to name
some one Roland J Rankin the 5th, even if they would want to.
Sense I was learning this trade from scratch, and having a
rough go at it I thought I would start taking notes for myself,
So I don't have to figure things out over and over. Sense
my son is 5, not really able to understand all that I'm trying to
explain to him just yet, Thought I would write them up nice and
neat just in case, later down the road he wanted to know what
his pop was saying, He'd have something to look back at.
Haven't decided what format, to put the notes in yet, but I might
settle for a web page, after there's enough of it to start looking
at.
I was wondering, if maybe, when I get some lesson done here
and there, If I could bring it to "the porch", have my betters,
make sure that I am not learning it wrong, or worse teaching
it wrong. Then I thought I could add comments from the
porch, as a kinda correction, and alternate way to do things,
mayhap if you guys think it's worth reading, I'll put it in a web
page, so that it could help along other disciples to the galoot
cult.
Well that's about as long winded as I care to be. It's as fair
and a true of an introduction to me as I think I've ever given.
Now I feel able to "Lurk" in silence, without breaking some
of the manner rules that my mother taught me.
Roland J Rankin Jr.
Todays Word is "Corruption"
Corruption is the act of saying "no" countless times, then saying
"yes" one time.
see also; virgin,whore and politician.
P.s.
My mailer doesn't have a character per line setting I can find,
so I took a stab at trying to get the lines to less than 80 that
the FAQ recommends (with hard line breaks) by hand. If I
messed up some here and there let me know I'll find a better
system next time.
P.P.S.
For those that may want to know.
I set my personal rules of dancing with wood is as such.
I won't use any tool, or machine that is not powered by me.
(treadle machines, hand tools)
I won't use any machine I didn't make.
(have to make my own treadle Lathe, scroll saws, band saws, etc...)
I will only buy tools if, if they are better than I can make on my
own. This rule only applies to tools, not to machines. I have to make
my own machines.
(Considering how scarce quality tools are, I'm apt to
end up having to take up a little blacksmithing down the road
a bit.)
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