Chuck, let's see...dumpster diving, rust huntin', making use of objects
not for their intended purpose...sounds like your comin' alongon those
skills..required of a galoot!

 Welcome to the porch, come out in the light and sit a spell.-- roy
 griggs roygriggs@c...

---- Chuck Ramsey  wrote:> Dear Galoots, (Short
Version) " Please allow me to introduce myself," I'm chuck. (Longer
Version)I'm a 1954 model. Nineteen Illinois winters followed by a
couple of German winters (courtesy of the US Army) and I found my home
in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. I was born a desert rat.Since 1976
I've spent the most enjoyable, meaningful, and painful moments of my
life hiking in the Grand Canyon. So I know things about slippery slopes
(sometimes the slopes are 60 degrees of sandstone with ball bearing
like granules poised above 400' sheer cliffs).I am too damn old to be a
galoot-in-training (and getting too damn old to work the Grand Canyon
cliffs also). But I'm too new at this to be a galoot. So I guess that
makes me a galoot-wannabe.I've been reading (not lurking since my
intentions have been entirely honorable, not evil) under the porch for
a couple of years. I have been and remain gobsmacked at the collective
wisdom, experience, knowledge, and generosity of spirit of the porch
dwellers.My woodworking skills are limited (I can push things with a
stick. Does that count?). And I've had "...a fool for a master." in the
sense of "A self taught man has...". I am by nature and necessity a
bottom feeder. I usually feel foolish when I buy a new tool at the
local H#&% D%!#@. I've wandered the local yard sales, flea markets, and
rust buckets for a while now. I have amassed an assortment of rusty
metal objects that I'm attempting to fettle into a full woodworking
hand tool kit. I am also an second floor apartment dweller so hand
powered tools help to make me a good neighbor. Tho, I've been told not
to chop mortises after 10:00pm. My workshop is a small patio opened to
the sun. My workbench is a salvaged (from a dumpster) 4X12 that was on
top of a couple of 5-gallon buckets improved to the same on top of 4
H#&% D%!#@ plastic saw horses improved to the same on top of a frame
bolted together from metal bed rails (also from local dumpsters).
Progress that I'm going to continue this next year.So...knowing all of
that...will you have me? Please? I promise to try to be good. I'll even
try to be nice to those folks from Oz. But I draw the line at flying
monkeys. No flying monkeys! Okay? chuck
 =09=09 =09 =09=09 -------------------------------------------------------------
--
 =---------
 > OldTools is a mailing list catering to the interests of hand tool
 > aficionados, both collectors and users, to discuss the history,
 > usage, value, location, availability, collectibility, and restoration
 > of traditional handtools, especially woodworking tools.
 >> To change your subscription options:
 > http://ruckus.law.cornell.edu/mailman/listinfo/oldtools
 >> To read the FAQ:
 > http://swingleydev.com/archive/faq.html
 >> OldTools archive: http://swingleydev.com/archive/ OldTools@r...
 > http://ruckus.law.cornell.edu/mailman/listinfo/oldtools

------------------------------------------------------------------------