So, when did it dawn on you that you were given to fits of
handtool fundamentalism?

  My first spasm was Christmas 1961, a few years before the birth
of the Rankin/Bass classic, Rudolph the Red-nose Reindeer, when
Jolly Ol' St. Nick gave me a carpenter's belt full of tools (I'm
covered in the hives right now knowing that Norm and I have some-
thing in common).

  I was just a snot-nosed punk of 4, who enjoyed taunting cats 
even at that age. I vividly remember taking the screwdriver of
the set and removing doorknobs in the house much to my ma's ire.
[I guess I had this latent desire to rip things apart, as it wasn't
long before I shreaded my younger brother's Mr. Machine to pieces.
Seems unavoidable, now, that I dismantled that house piece by
piece as destiny's voice was chanting "Dismantle it and they
will leave" over and over in my own personal Field of Screams.]

  The scene switches to somewhere around the age of 10, when I
fancied arboreal living in the tree-houses I made. These weren't
simple affairs of the common platform up in the branches, but
were, instead, multi-level domiciles with cantilevered porches.
I suppose if I were into dames at the time, curtains, shag car-
peting, an Easy Bake Oven, and indoor plumbing woulda been on 
the punch list. Thankfully, I wasn't.

  Anyway, it's the swinging in the trees where the light dawned
over Marblehead that things could be done with the simplest of
tools (that, and we didn't have an extension cord long enough)
and it's been downhill ever since.

  How about you?

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Patrick Leach
Just say Why am I such a misfit?
         I am not just a nitwit.
         Just because my knuckles drag,
         Why don't I fit in?
etc.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

At 02:52 PM 10/3/97 -0400, Patrick Leach wrote:
>So, when did it dawn on you that you were given to fits of
>handtool fundamentalism?

I blame it all on you!!!
it all started that fatefull day over on Rec.Norm when I was needing info on
a DJ-14.... You says to me:
"Feh, kid you need a #7.. Here, lemme send you one to try out."

John

{=================STANDARD DISCLAIMER=================}
{_The views expressed are those of the author and may_}
{___not reflect the views of Cabletron Systems Inc.___}
{=====================================================}

I've been hearing voices all my life, but not so many since the medication.

I started getting interested in tools at about 12 yrs old. I was taking
woodshop in 7th & 8th grades and my grandfather had a small shop in his
basement. I made lots of little things then BUT I discovered GIRLS. Big
difference. Much more fun than sandpaper & saws. So I chased all the little
skirts around & partied my butt off. Over 25 yrs I made the single malt
scotch distillers very successfull. I finally got married at the tender age
of 41. I had made my quota & it was time to settle down and make babies. 

I always had the ww'ing bug in my head but when the 1st daughter arrived I
bought all the Crapsman stuff as most neophytes are prone to do. I was
selling big pieces(enter. ctrs, beds, tables, etc.). About 4 yrs ago the
family made a day trip to Hancock Shaker Village. We stopped at the
woodshop & TWANG--- I saw the bench. I yakked with the cabinetmaker du jour
for a couple of hours while the rest of my family enjoyed everything else.
When I left, I gave him my card with the fantasy in mind of working there.

Well damned if I didn't get a call the following spring for an interview. I
worked as the resident cabinetmaker there for 3 yrs. , but the handtool
epiphany really didn't hit me until my first day at HSV. When I saw all
the great workmanship I realized that the stuff done with handtools
glittered & shone in comparison to the stuff I was turning out on machines.

The real shock was leaving HSV at about the time I discovered the Porch. I
thought everybody had a Stanley 85 scraper to use. I thought everybody had
two 12 ft workbenches at their disposal. I thought everybody had a treadle
lathe.

Thank God for the Porch & FMM.

Joe Duclos
Resident Cabinetmaker
My House

The Leachmeister speaketh of times past and tools long gone!

I have always known the way of tools. I have spoken with them from my 
earliest moments before leaving the womb. The large forceps the doctor 
used on me head to bring me forth into this world left their mark upon me.

My next foray into the world of tools was at the tender age of 8 when I 
used my father's screwdrivers and hammer to disassemble and reassemble his 
double barrel 12 ga. shotgun. Needless to say I paid to have the thing rebuilt!
But that didn't deter me. In fact it only fueled the fires that burn deep 
inside. Next on my list was the 5 years I spent in a machine shop during 
college. This is where I really learned the value of well kept tools. I 
learned under a Master of the trade. He was a tough task master but he 
taught me how to keep my mic's and calipers accurate. And also how not to 
setup a crash bar so the d*mn vise wouldn't climb up the drill and sling 
cutting oil into my eyes!!! And still I talked with the tools to try and 
fathom their secrets.

Finally I decided that tailed demons were the only way to go. Fortunately 
I hadn't bought very many until I met Paddy and P. Leach over on 
rec.the.wood. I think also that the man from Lamantia also helped a 
little here. After that....the slippery slope and the support group from 
hell took over and here I am!!!!!

Thanks Messr. Leach for all the tools! 

Gary Johns                 Location: 36.139584 N, 97.063035 W
"Talks to Tools"           OldTool Heaven
                           http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/9147

On Fri, 03 Oct 1997 14:52:57 -0400, Patrick Leach wrote:

>So, when did it dawn on you that you were given to fits of
>handtool fundamentalism?
>
>  My first spasm was Christmas 1961, a few years before the birth
>of the Rankin/Bass classic, Rudolph the Red-nose Reindeer, when
>Jolly Ol' St. Nick gave me a carpenter's belt full of tools . . . .

A few years before that, when I was 6 or 7, St. Nick gave me a metal 
carpenter's toolbox with a little saw, screwdriver, hammer, etc.  I 
managed to test out the saw and the hammer/screwdriver (aka chisel) on my 
nice new pine desk and dresser set.  After that, the tools were only to 
be used under supervision.

At some point when I was 10-12, my uncle gave me a German carving set 
with interchangeable gouges, chisels, and an X-acto type handle. Not 
having a dad with tool capability (and lacking any wood to carve except 
the one block Uncle Dick sent -- where would a kid get a board in 
Manhattan?), this went mostly unused.

In Boy Scouts, I whittled a neckerchief thingie with a face on it!  
Finally, a galoot project completed!

-- Michael D. Sullivan, Bethesda, Md., USA
-- Email: mds@a..., avogadro@w...

At 10:15 PM 10/3/97 -0500, Michael D. Sullivan wrote:
>On Fri, 03 Oct 1997 14:52:57 -0400, Patrick Leach wrote:
>
>>So, when did it dawn on you that you were given to fits of
>>handtool fundamentalism?
>>
Well I was long time in the Scouts growing up, so makings things has been a
part of my life, carving, leatherwork, etc.  My father had few power tools
(the primary one was an old 50's vintage Craftsman 8" table saw), so I
learned to use a brace and a bit, handsaw, and the odd chisel as needed.
(I was pretty proficient with a sander, though).

I dabbled over the years, carved a smoking pipe from a briar block, make
walnut grips out of some scrap for my Ruger target pistol, worked on a few
guitars (electric), etc.

Well along comes Wife, kids, and home ownership.  We were living down in
the York PA area at the time (late 80's) and I could see the light at the
end of the tunnel as far as home maintainance and repairs went.  I wanted
to get into furniture making and started, like I always do, by reading.  At
a woodworkers show in Harrisburg, I was looking around for books and came
across the Taunton Press "Bench Tools".  Read it, and something clicked.  I
had watched Roy Underhill on PBS (he used to start off the "Home Repair
Saturday" at 5:00, but never paid a whole of attention.  Well, now I did.
Went out and bought all his books, (one every couple of weeks so as not to
upset the "cosmic" balance of Wife and Peace).  I was hooked.

Started buying planes, my first molding place was a Casey & Kitchell (not
that it meant anything to me at the time) 1/4 bead.  Still have it, still
use it.  Bought a couple more here and there (gee at one point thought it
was pretty cool to have 10 molding planes........).  Bought the Barlow book
and digested it a couple of hundred times.  (Now some people pooh-pooh the
Barlow book, name escapes me at present), but even though the prices aren't
current, it gives you an idea of the ballpark and other than Salaman, it is
a very complete reference to old tools in general.) 

Started scouring the fleas and auctions.  My "big" break came, when a long
time tool dealer from the Allentown area passed on, and they started
auctioning his stuff.  Imagine walking into the stall area of a big old
barn and seeing molding planes, three shelves deep around the back and side
walls.  I was in "old tool" shock.  (Took a total of 6 days over 3 months
to auction everything, plus a cleanup load at the auction house). 

I came home after the first night, and said, "Dear", I think I'm going to
start selling tools...............

And dat's da truth.   

Tony (still reading and still learning)

___________________________________________________________________
      Parental Woodworking 101---
       Look, you nailed 3 boards together and only used........50 nails!
___________________________________________________________________

The voices started for me long ago. My father taught me how to use hand
tools long before I ever set hand on a power tool. Actually my brother and
I started out with pick and shovel first. We were given a 'project' any
time we committed any offense. We enjoyed them, so my folks changed
tactics. :)

Recently I decided I wanted to make furniture. 

After reading rec.norm for too long, and being dismayed about the
amount of space power tools take, I stumbled across the EN site. Probably
from one the the galoot postings on rec.norm, as I recall now.

Once I got a couple of tools, and talked to my woodshop instructor (I was
learning how to use planers, etc. at adult educ.) I decided that I did not
really need powered machinery to do woodworking.

Now I am on my way with my motley collection of a couple of working block
planes, and a jack and now a jointer plane. My workbench is halfway done,
and I have a backlog of furniture to repair and projects to build.

I think I am sliding down the old tool slope now. I was out in my garage
with my step-FIL the other day, and my jaw hit the floor when he said
that his uncle was into tools and has been moved to a nursing home. He
has a house and barn full of stuff. Rooms packed to the ceiling. Been going
to farm auctions for 50 years, buying stuff. A year ago, if I heard 
that, I would not have batted an eye. Now I am trying to figure out
how to make the trip before they 'bulldoze the house under, too much junk
to sort thru'.

	Steve

[Patrick asks us to write of the voices we heard...]

First off, I'd like as many people to respond to this as possible,
especially the nearly 200 of you out there....

WHO HAVE NEVER POSTED A BIO!!

Yes, there are folks out there who have been subscribed to oldtools for a
loooong time, and have never said a peep. Shame on you :-).

Ah, the voices....

In my youth (before discovering that females were for more than playing
right field in a game of kickball), I was obsessed with two things:
sports, and building stuff. Most of my building mania was manifested in
plastic models (Monogram, the best), and the wood projects were with the
old man (I'll try not to retread too much of my bio). We stuck mostly to
carpentry, so I got a lot of practice hammering nails, using a hand saw,
and picking redwood splinters out of my fingers. As we worked, and my dad
would bring out one of his tools, he'd tell me, "Wagon (they called me
PaddyWagon... still do, dammit), this tool is older than you are," and
he'd proceed to give me a history of whatever it was.

It didn't matter if it was his brace and auger bits, B&D p*w*r drill, or
old Craftsman mitre box, I got a refresher on how he came across that
particular tool. I was at his shop just last weekend, and I recognized a
lot of his old stuff - one mint Stanley boxwood t-bevel, in particular.
He's taken good care of what he's got.

One thing we never bothered to figure out was the hand plane. He has an
old Stanley Handyman, which has never seen a honing stone. I remember tha
thing chattering like a mofo everytime I tried to use it. It wasn't until
I discovered rec.norm, and the rebellious Neanderthals, that I learned you
can adjust the depth of cut on a bench plane, without having to remove the
lever cap. 

It's funny that Patrick would bring up this topic, because it was three
years ago this month, that I experienced my hand plane epiphany, when I
tried out my first toy from Mssr. Leach. It's the #8 you see me cradling
in the final scene of my Galootavision video shop tour. It fits my hand as
though I were born with it. Maybe that explains the dent in the side of my
head :-).

As Ralph told me way back when I posted about my infamous #8...

"Be careful Pat, first it's a nice jointer plane from Patrick, but soon
you'll be on a plane to Maine, to bid $1500 on a shoulder plane with ebony
infill."

I dunno, Ralph. Does bringing home a post drill and Emmert vise in my
luggage count?

Paddy, hears the voices every day... and they keep getting louder.

----------
> From: Michael D. Sullivan mds@a...
> To: oldtools oldtools@l...
> Subject: Re: The voices within...
> Date: Friday, October 03, 1997 10:15 PM
> 
> On Fri, 03 Oct 1997 14:52:57 -0400, Patrick Leach wrote:
> 
> >So, when did it dawn on you that you were given to fits of
> >handtool fundamentalism?
> >

Fairly recently actually.

Started making pukey ducks 10 or 12 years ago, after about 3 years of that
started making furniture. Found my first Krenov book. I was then hooked.
Even named my siamese cat Krenov. Not really a " pure galoot" yet. May
never be, but I am trying to always use hand tools techniques where they
make sense and make a difference. In the last 2 years, my hand tools coll  
   errr   assortment has grown at an alarming rate. I have 24 block planes
Paddy. I don't know how many saw sets I have, and will someone please tell
me what I am doin with all these little oil cans?

I am replacing all the furniture in our house piece by piece.

What I really want to do is to learn to make windsor chairs. I will
probably then go pure galoot in methods of work

SWMBO has become part of the problem. She bought home 2 coping saws and a
Miller Falls Brace this mornin. She paid 25C  each for them at Garage sales

Ron

> >

[Patrick asks us to write of the voices we heard...]

[And Paddy jumped on those]
>WHO HAVE NEVER POSTED A BIO!!

	I did, but it weren't much.  Lessee now....
	In fifth grade, in a two room school out west of Bakersfield, the
county Ed Dept. sent a Shop Truck, complete with teacher, around to the
country schools, Sort of like a BookMobile.  So for half a day, once a
week, we had shop.  This was, um, somewhere in the middle 1950s.  No power
tools allowed--too dangerous, they said.  So we made the requisite plywood
knick-knack shelf and pine pig-shaped cutting board with coping saw, rasp,
and sandpaper.  Lots of sandpaper. Brace and bits and hand saws, but no
planes, no chisels, no shaves.  Come to think of it, nothing with a blade
that needed regular sharpening.  As I think on it now, *that's* what was
lost in the transition to the modern age.  Not so much the advant of power
(some version of power has been used in production settings since the
industrial revolution), but the loss of skill in and concern for tool
maintenance and sharpening.  I thank this list for getting me into that.
Maybe too far into it, as I've just about concluded that my hobby is not so
much "hand tool WW" as "old tool restoration."  But that's OK--it's a hobby.
	My dad was never much of a detail guy, except with leather, to keep
his equipment in shape.  He was a cowboy, mostly, and depended on his tack
to get him through the day.  He taught himself to weld, and we did the
usual survival carpentry, (and building fence, with fence tools!) but no
real WW.  As an extension from the Shop Truck experience an uncle helped me
design and build a set of bookshelves, with dados for the shelves cut with
handsaw, and a funky huge ogee detail at the top, when I was 11.  No
dimensioning needed--we just took the nominal 1 x 10 clear mahogany boards
out of the stack in the shed behind the school, and used them as they came.
Pukey duck wall shelf and cutting board long gone, but I'm sitting here
looking across the room at those bookshelves.  A little big to be buried
with, but maybe part of the coffin...
	A couple of years after that I found myself in a different school
with regular shop for boys and home Ec. for girls.  Can't remember much
about what we made, but ol' Mr. Royer taught us how to draw plans.  I still
sketch out plans pretty much like Mr. Royer insisted we do, before starting
work.  Thanks, Mr. Royer.
	Nuff for now,
		Tom Holloway,
thinking about a lot of years in between with *no* WW to speak of....

(How did a mild-mannered librarian end with a serious old
tool addiction?)

I spent my youth avoiding all types of work at all cost. 
Whenever my father got his tools out, it mean WORK, an
activity which came in a very distant second to hunting and
fishing, and later, cars & girls.  I can still remember the
time I overheard him telling a neighbor, "That Randy is a
good kid, but when there's any work to do, you just can't
find that boy anywhere."

I can still remember, too, the time he tried to show me how
to use a hand saw and hand plane and me tapping my foot
impatiently, in a hurry to hop on my bike and go jump over
dirt piles with the guys.  I managed to get through the
first 38 years of my life with only one solo
woodworking/carpentry project under my belt -- a boy scout
bird feeder.

Dad died in 1989.  In our part of the world, the eldest son
gets all the tools, so my older bro' claimed the big tool
box dad made in 1932 with all the goodies inside.  There
were a few planes that didn't fit in the box left over so
bro' allowed that I might as well take them.  There was a
Stanley no. 7 (Dad had two), a Stanley no. 4 (Dad had
several smoothers), and a no-name jack.  There was some
miscellaneous that he didn't want--it included a wooden
level, a brace and a mess of bits ...

I put the stuff in the trunk and took it home.  When I went
to clean the dust off them, I was amazed at how cool these
old tools were and wondered how they worked ... 

When if comes to objects, I'm not a sentimental person.  I
eventually traded off most of the stuff I got from Dad for
better tools (I had inadvertently cracked the cheek on the
beautiful, beautiful jointer). 

Course I came out of the deal with something better than
Dad's old tools. 
Randy Roeder                             Repaint houses, not
old tools.

Any boy in the southeast Bronx in the late 'forties, early 'fifties, could
do amazing things with a hammer and a wooden orange crate lifted from the
local fruitstand.  Take it apart, save and straighten the nails, and you
could create a machine gun on tripod, say, along with a couple of neat
rubber-band pistols.  Add a length of scavenged two-by-four, and an old
skate and you've got the makin's of a really neat scooter...etc....etc.  No
limit to the ingenuity we developed with a hammer. (Undertstand this is
still the case, but the hammer tends to be used on other people rather than
old crates.)

Went to Berkeley, Ca in 1954, when my beatnik uncle who lived out there
invited me to get off the street and try university (hadn't been thinking
about it) and I thus became a student out there, utimately staying in that
salubrious state (both meanings) until 1966. Al, my uncle, never completed
his architect's degree, but he designed houses and furniture, anyway.  Alas,
he frequently under-estimated his bids and ended up having to do a fair
amount of work himself, flooring, trim, built-ins. Some summers, and
sometimes during panic periods, he'd get me to help. This experience added
screwdrivers, drills, and lots of other stuff to my hammer expertise.

Can't say I was a neanderthal, tho.  Al owned a craftsman contractor saw
that he loved, a four inch jointer, along with skillsaw, power drill,   and
a few other tailed apprentices and it never occurred to him, nor to me, to 
use hand tools when these machines could do it faster. My name was Walt and
I was a Normie before there was a Norm. 

(jump cut to 1993-1994)  I'd been building or repairing furniture and doing
other stuff with wood for thirty years while raising a family, working a
university job, and making a life. When I retired, I built a workshop and
decided to spend most of my now free time in that sanctum, free of other
demands like work, young kids.  Fact is, that shop was (and is) equipped
with a wide variety of old tools, but they were nearly all  stationary power
machines salvaged from scrap or bought at second hand stores or thru want
ads and repaired and restored.

So, how'd I get to be a part-Neanderthal, you ask?  Mainly because I was
bored and ashamed of myself for doing a terrific job making things that I
would choose because they COULD be made with power tools. I had early fallen
in love with American colonial and federal and wanted cabriole legs, bracket
feet, arched pediments, carved fans, and all that other great stuff.  And
those machine-made "repros"  available from ads in the mags were all pretty
crappy and ugly and expensive and just looked "wrong".

Didn't know where to start and didn't have the courage to just give it a
shot.  Until (enter irony), the most sophisticated power tool I own entered
my life.  The computer brought me rec.woodworking and rec.woodworking
brought me the old tools listserv, and the rest is history.

In the past three or four years, I've learned how to put a razor sharp edge
on virtually any cutting tool, semi-mastered the plane and the chisel,
gotten into carving, and filled my house with the things I've always lusted
after.  Got me a cherry tripod candle-stand, a walnut bracket-foot sugar
chest (after Carlyle Lynch),a slant-front Mahogany secretary,  a walnut
Massachusetts highboy,  which stands seven feet and occupies the place of
pride in my house and some amazing toys (a large Mack truck cab built nearly
entirely by hand from scrap, an articulated front-end loader) for my
grandson in New York, along with sundry chippendale mirrors, assorted self
designed jewel boxes (based on federal styles) for relatives, and lots of
other things I can't even recall to catalog here, now.

I remain a pragmatist and confess that my six inch p***r j*****r, Unis*w,
and other things with tails still play a major role in my woodworking life. 
But I have learned to love a well tuned plane, and am still amazed at what
the chisel and scraper can do.  And I now have a pretty good collection of
user oldtools/handtools alongside my recently-manufactured stanley low angle
block plane.

And, gotta say this, I owe it all to you guys, especially the few I met
early on in rec.woodworking and those who helped me along with tools or
techniques. So, with special thanks to PL and BM and lots of others,  here's
another dossier (ambiguous, I guess) on sources of oldtool fundamentalism.

Yours,
Walt

Patrick Leach wrote:

>So, when did it dawn on you that you were given to fits of
>handtool fundamentalism?

I'm guessing I was about 10 when I received a wooden tool box, a set of 
carpentry tools, and a small pile of lumber for Christmas. I made nothing 
of consequence from this wood but I still remember this as one of the 
most satisfying Christmas presents I ever got. From that point on until 
college I did very little woodworking except for the odd tree house. it 
wasn't until 1976 that I really got bitten hard by the woodworking bug 
when I took a woodworking course offered through the Student Union at 
Ohio State. The shop course was strictly p*wertools but I was somewhat 
attracted to the idea of using some hand tools. For one thing I didn't 
have squat for disposable income and certainly wasn't going to buy all 
the tailed apprentices that I used in the course. So I bought a crummy 
Stanley Handyman #4 and a couple of Kunz spokeshaves. I had a brace and a 
Sandvik backsaw. I had a Sears rout*r and a set of Great Neck chisels. I 
made a few small projects throughout my graduate education using various 
storage lockers in married student housing for workspaces. I ended up 
buying a used t*bl*s*w when I moved out to California and set up a shop 
in my garage. In 1985 I built my bench and in doing so began to 
understand how to tune a plane and use a scraper. Yet I continued to lust 
after various and sundry tailed apprentices and, with the exception of 
planes, tried to use tailed apprentices whenever possible. What kept 
turning me back to handtools was the limitations of my p*wertools.

I'm cheap. No doubt about it. Paying $1500 for a really nice t*bl*saw is 
something I'll never be able to do. Mine is an ancient 8" Delta I bought 
for $50. It is a solid, well made little saw (with loads of patina) but 
can't cut through much more than 2". I was pondering the replacement of 
this tool while standing in front of the Dominy workshop display at the 
Winterthur museum when it finally dawned on me that working with 
handtools is a different paradigm entirely. Bringing the tool to the 
material frees up all sorts of possibilities. T*bl*s*ws have a maximum 
blade size and thus height. B*nds*ws have a maximum resaw capacity. 
Jo*nt*rs and plan*rs have a maximum width and the latter a maximum 
height. Bigger machines mean more money and more square footage. Yet, you 
can physically surface an area you could never stick in a jointer or 
planer with a #4 or #5 and a card scraper. I could rip a 12 ft board with 
a Disston and a couple of sawhorses. If I want to shove this same board 
through my  t*bl*s*w it means that I need 12 ft behind the saw, 12 ft in 
front and some extra for maneuvering room. My shop isn't that long or 
wide. This is my hobby, not my livelihood, and I don't have the space or 
money for bigger p*w*r tools. I won't go into noise, dust, and the fear 
of decapitating much loved body parts. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Back to the voices. Two years ago I was increasingly disenchanted with my 
woodworking and wanted to try using more handtools especially beyond 
planes and chisels. I had already made a few attempts to find local 
sources for used tools but never really came up with good spots. I wasn't 
sure what was good stuff or what some of the stuff was worth. I had 
Patrick's Stanley Blood and Gore but as he mentions, it isn't a price 
guide. I wasn't yet aware of Jay Sutherland's Plane Dating page. I saw a 
mention of the OldTools listserv on rec.norm and joined up. My life 
changed. Before the list, woodworking was a solitary hobby. It did not 
appear to me that Neanderthals were getting a lot of respect on rec.norm 
at the time (although I think things have changed for the better) and it 
was hard to get useful information on hand tool topics through the noise. 
On the local front, I got together with friends to work on joint projects 
occasionally but participating in OldTools was a quantum leap on the 
interactivity scale. Now when I run into a problem or experience an 
epiphany I have several hundred Galoots to ask questions of or to share 
knowledge and maybe a good gloat with.

The voices in my head are _your_ voices and I carry them with me whenever 
I hit a flea market or enter my shop. 
****************************
Tom Price 
Brakes For Rust

The Stages Of A Galoot is a feature at The Galoot's Progress:
http://members.aol.com/tomprice/galootp/galtprog.html

At 10:15 PM 10/3/1997 -0500, Michael D. Sullivan wrote:
>On Fri, 03 Oct 1997 14:52:57 -0400, Patrick Leach wrote:
>
>>So, when did it dawn on you that you were given to fits of
>>handtool fundamentalism?

In graduate school in New Jersey about 14 years ago.  

My father was a weekend woodworker who was an amatuer machinist on the
side.  He designed and built a milling machine when I was a kid, as well as
made a lathe long before I was born.  A machinist's approach extended to
woodworking - meaning that he did lots of things with a t*blesaw, RAS, and
so on.

I got a hammer and scewdriver by the time I was four, and designed a
rubberband gun at age six that got the other kids to tolerate me when I
made them rubberband guns of their own, using my screwdriver as a chisel to
mortice a slot for the trigger.  But basically my dad was always so much
better than me at making things that I never thought of myself as a
woodworker or anything else.  I did spend some time in highschool making
projects which looking back were pretty sophisticated and well-done.  A
tone arm with bearings comes to mind (not to mention various pipes for
smoking dope in high school).  But they never were as nice as the things my
dad could do.

Then I went to college and cludged together some futon frames, bookshelves,
etc. but the only way I knew how to build those were with tablesaw dados
and I had no saw.  So that stuff was pretty abominable, though functional
as student furniture.

Then I went to college in New Jersey, half way between NYC and Philly.  I
had my VW squareback and I used it to hit flea markets.  At the same time I
decided to build a friend a dulcimer.  Having few power tools I picked up
various things at the Lambertville flea-market and made it mostly by hand.
It turned out OK, though the going was rough at times (I used a sabre saw
to cut the headstock.  The college bookstore had FWW and I started reading
it.  I also started building a guitar.  And I started buying handtools in
earnest.  Planes, planes and planes, a nice vice, and so on.  Price made
lots of difference.  My guitar, a telecaster copy, required me to use a
spokeshave to make the neck, and it was a great success.

I still used power tools when I could.  Never having had a sharp handsaw, I
always prefered sawing with a tablesaw or bandsaw.  I also used a router
for various operations.  And after a while I found the physics department
student shop where I used the drillpress.  I ended up housesitting for the
guy who ran the place and used his basement shop to build a workbench that
is still just shy of completerly finished 13 years later.  And while I used
power saws and even a jointer, I handplaned the top.  

 I acquired and rebuilt a tablesaw along the way, and used it for most
sawing.  So at this point I was using roughly 50% power tools and 50%
handtools.   And things stayed that way for the next ten or so years.  Then
a couple of years back I started reading wreck.norm and Patrick was there
elaborating the virtues of handtools along with Vince and a few others
whose names I can't recall.  I started looking harder again for planes and
using handtools a bit more.  Since I'm a relatively resourceful scavanger I
found a good number.  One of my best finds was a carpenter's toolbox
complete with Stanley 289,  a set of forstner bits, and Irwin bits, #45,
#71, #6, #7, drawknives, spokeshaves, several Disston D12s and 112s, all
pre-1920, and more I'm forgetting offhand.

A real turning point came when I got some sharp handsaws.  These were the
saws that came with the toolbox. I started using them more and more.  That
was maybe two and a half years back.  A little before the time this group
was born.  An IT, and a nice miterbox also speeded up the process.  I also
bought a house and built a kitchen addition.  This required me to use a
power saw a lot, but lots of what I did was with handtools, saws, braces,
planes and of course a hammer.  At this point I'd say I'm 80% handtools,
20% power tools, even on the house.  When I can I use the handtools for the
lack of dust and noise.  It is more relaxing.  But I do still use the
electric implements of destruction for various purposes when it saves time
(I'm surprised at how often it doesn't), or when I don't have the handplane
I need to do the job.

So I guess the answer is somewhere in the last 15 years (partly thanks to
the person who started this thread).

Mark

Mark van Roojen		P.O. Box 83836
Department of Philosophy	Lincoln, NE 68501-3836
University of Nebraska    	(402) 438-3724 (h)
1010 Oldfather Hall		(402) 472-2428 (w)
Lincoln, NE 68588-0321	(402) 472-0626 (fax)

My dad spent his early years teaching cabinetmaking in Boston, then worked 
as a shipwright for many ears.  On a lark he bought a taxi cab, then 
another 50 or so, a car dealership and other auto related businesses and 
never went back professionally.  But, we bought our "house" when I was 
about 6 years old.  By the time I was 18 not one of the original outside 
walls was left.  When my Dad was bored or restless he added on to the house 
or built furniture.  My dad was bored alot, he added over 4500 sqft to our 
house over the years.  Did most all the work himself except electrical and 
plaster (real plaster). Well actually he had 5 sons, whom he all taught 
woodworking to. I was hanging doors at 12.  At 16 we sent off you popular 
mech. for plans to a kayak.  Well we built it and abused it for about 10 
years, till it finally gave up to ghost.  Should have saved it, I bet I put 
600 brass screws in that thing...

Been a do it yourself type eversince, and got spoiled by my fathers 
exceptional work. He taught me about MT joints at and early age and they 
have become my standard method of joinery for many things.  I inherited a 
large collection of starret measuring tools and many millers falls planes 
as well as 3 great bezel gauges, the kind with the flat locking lever that 
does not get in the way of the work.

His favorite tailed tool was a sawzall, we took down more walls with that 
thing than I can remember.  He died several years ago, but used to carve 
the most beautiful half model ships from 8/4 mahog scraps.  So aside from 
the boat projects (2 underway now) there is a new kitchen island in the 
works, and a sideboard, then comes new cabinet doors and a dining room 
table.

Here in FLA I use mostly local woods like cypress and live oak, and bring 
in Cherry for the remainder.

Regards,
Bruce

Avoiding all stimuli to undertake public self analysis of personality
disorders: In my case, I believe it was unprotected exposure to 'The
Last Whole Earth Catalogue'

Just say, And I've always thought the slots should line up and I get
deeply depressed when I can't make them.....

GGs,

I've enjoyed crafty-type, making-type activities as far back as I can
remember. The happiest days of my youth (1950s) were spent building
woodburning (hobby type, not pyromania), building model cars, setting up my
model railroad, etc. I also spent ten years taking violin and cello lessons.

During my schooling I tried art (no talent), music composition (no talent),
writing (no talent) and girls (no talent). Since I lacked the "gift of the
muse" it was destined that sooner or later I would resort back to my hands
(no smart comments about the girl thing either). Somewhere along the line my
interests hit two extremes - the fine (classical music, high art,
Shakespeare, etc.) and the common (folk music, folk art, etc.).

After getting married and buying a house in 1980, I began with the typical
handyman stuff. But kids and work and life seemed to take up all my time.

In the late 80s the company I worked for moved us to Ohio (south of
Cleveland) where I became enthralled with the Amish (quilts, woodworking,
simplicity). Then came NYW and N*rm's pseudo-Shaker creations. All this
ultimately led to Sears and some Crapsman p*w*r tools as I got Normie. [Side
note: I even have an autographed copy of N*rm's "Mostly Shaker" book. Now
that I've confessed I feel much better and no, Ralph, I won't quit the list.]

After a couple years of crappy tools, lots of noise, always needing another
jig, and never getting anything quite right, I almost chucked the whole
thing. But God took pity and directed me to a copy of Mike Dunbar's book in
early 96 and to this group a few months later. The rest is history.

Now, I can't say I no longer get frustrated since I've still got much to
learn. But I understand the tools, the techniques, and the wood better each
day. Added bonus - I can work in the shop *and* hear Mozart at the same
time... truly Heaven on Earth.

Dennis

Patrick Leach wrote:
> 
> So, when did it dawn on you that you were given to fits of
> handtool fundamentalism?

I wasn't going to get in on this thread but as I continued to read
something was becoming increasingly obvious: almost everyone else had a
head start!!

Everyone is saying how their Dad helped them get into woodworking. My
father's one, and only, talent is as a cook. I did learn a bit about
this from him (mom too). But woodworking?! Not a chance. For most of
the years of my youth we lived in mobile homes or trailers (4 people in
an 8x28 trailer for 6 years...) with metal siding set on concrete
blocks. I doubt very much whether he even owned a handsaw.

My first experience working with wood was JHS shop. Disaster! Next HS
shop. Ditto! Didn't think about wood again until I was about 30,
married, working full time for next-to-nothing and going to school. It
figures that this is when I'd first spot Norm on NYW. I was probably
saved from becoming a rabid Normite by nothing more than the twin evils
of my life: lack of money to buy tools with and lack of time to build
anything with even I had the tools which I didn't.

So for years I just watched and drooled. Over this time though Cindy
and I both became more and more amazed at the number of tools that he
seemed to need to build even a reasonably modest project. It became a
bit of a running joke for us ("... my dedicated 1/2" hollow chisel
morticer...") and I began to wonder whether there was something wrong
here.

Finally we bought a house where I'd be able to have a shop in the
basement and have room for tools!! That was when I found rec.ww looking
for advice on what TS to buy. That was also where I found Paddy, Steve,
Tom and some crackpot from back east named Patrick. I'd say that their
talk about handtools on rec.ww was when I was converted, but I'd be
lying. Indeed right after I went out and bought some of my tailed
helpers Cindy decided that she had better things for me to do with my
time so I dissappeared from the rec.ww scene for 6 or 8 months. Thus I
was gone when the fatefull announcement was made.

When I came back something seemed a bit strange. I never saw anything
from Steve (sorta like now on OldTools, eh?) and precious little from
Paddy. I was a bit puzzled, and a bit letdown as I always enjoyed
reading a well written piece and they were two of the few who routinely
managed to write reasonably well! Then Paddy posted "Why Powertools Are
Evil" and the voices started.... I sent him a message and got
directions to the porch. Started lurking on the archives and thinking
about it. Sent a message to Patrick asking for some recommendations and
then THE order (#5, #7, #45) which was the subject of my first ever
gloat. I don't think that I've read rec.ww more than 6 times since and
haven't enjoyed it any of those times.

So for me, at least, the voices are only a bit over 16 months old. This
is not to say, however, that they haven't pretty readily dominated my
"free" time since then (I think that the reason Cindy has been pretty
good about the amount of our disposable income that I've sunk into my
tools is that she is the reason that I don't have any time to use them.)

-Ken

My mom and dad have always been pretty handy with a tool in their hands
since they built the two houses that I lived in growing up, but that's not
what I sat down to write about.  Sure, they instilled the "handyman"
attitude that I got in my gut, but they're true power users.

Me?  Like many on this list, I watched the his high normness on Saturday
afternoons in amazement...amazement in the size of his shop, the amount of
tools he owned, and that he got to make stuff from wood for a living.  I
didn't even own a handsaw (let alone a Unisaw) at that time (early '90s),
since I was still in graduate school.  Still, Ole Norm planted the
woodworking hobby seed deep inside, and I knew that, someday, I wanted to
make stuff from wood.

As time went on, I cavorted with my thoughts, attempting to dream up ways
to legally get money to buy some of Normie's tools.  Having maxed-out a
credit card once, I didn't want to travel that dark road again.  Somehow, I
found rec.norm and seined a post out of the general clutter on the idea of
Scary-Sharp(tm).  This post lead me to handtools by a route that eludes me.
At last, I'd found a way to pursue my hobby without the associated
finacial ruin.

I've read a few books along the way about using handtools.  Michael
Dunbar's book as well as the OLDTOOL frenzy that was obtaining The Complete
Woodworker jump to the front of my mind.  Reading has given me many of the
insights I've needed to flatten boards and then make them into different
shapes.

Handtools are all that I've used, thus far.  I don't see myself going any
other way.

kam

Patrick Leach wrote:
>So, when did it dawn on you that you were given to fits of
>handtool fundamentalism?

[Pavel]
I'm not sure I have. I've always liked making things with my hands.

When I was a kid I used to make those intricate balsa models. I made a 
1/10th scale Bruwster Buffalo that took a year. Many of the parts I custom 
designed and cut. I also did a lot of lapidary as a kid. Cabbing and 
faciting. I also did a little stone carving. It was very 'quite' to make 
things form under my hand.

Then in November of '78 my right arm was off my body for about 30 minutes. 
It was a useless chunk for 2 years. Once it got back to working (My left is 
useless, I can't hardly eat with it.) I had to give up model making and 
lapidary as I didn't have the fine control anymore.

In '80 I joined the SCA and it opened a new field for me. Armoring. I soon 
collected anvils and anvil stakes enough to make pretty good armor. If I 
couldn't find the right too I would have it made. Once more things were 
forming under my hands. And my soul was 'quieted' again.

Then I got a house and started to do repairs around it. I have a large shop 
in the basement. Half for armoring and metal work, half for 'repair' level 
wood working. I got all the tailed demons that I needed. I built stairs and 
bookshelves, repaired floors and built walls. None of this was a good as 
armoring because it was to crude.

In 87 I cut my right hand mostly off (back of wrist and half of joint were 
not severed. All nerves and arteries cut. all but one vein cut.) When it 
was put back on and healed I only can feel my index finger and thumb. Still 
can't use my left though. :) Armoring became a major pain as with only one 
vein to drain the hand, it swells with any extended pounding.

Well, I thought, I have all these woodworking tools, surely I can make 
boxes. I made 4-5 crude boxes and gave them away. They felt good to make 
and didn't hurt me too much. Still wasn't as good as forming the delicate 
things I used too, but not bad.

Then one day, a friend of mine who does lots of woodwork in the SCA came to 
visit. He uses only hand tools. he sharpened my one old plane for me and 
showed me how to use it. It was the feeling I needed to get the 'quite'. I 
have collected a few planes and scrappers with him showing me how to use 
them. I will learn carving this winter. I still use my tailed demons to do 
quick jobs, and never see myself giving them completely up, but like the 
feel of the wood shaping under my hands.

Pavel

I sent in a bio when I joined the list but it isn't in the archive so   here goe
s:

I grew up in E. Ky around old ways and old tools.   I always liked to build thin
gs and spent a lot of time working on sheds, pens, barns etc using slabs we scav
enged from my cousin's sawmill.   Sometime during my formative years I developed
 a keen interest in looking at junk.   My maternal grandfather was a (relatively
) large farmer and had large barns and sheds full of neat stuff common around a 
farm.

My brother and I did a lot of remodeling to our house through the years and I pi
cked up some knowledge of carpentry.   Went to college and   studied Forestry, f
inanced it by working construction during summer vacation.      Graduated, went 
back to working construction.   I had recently bought a stereo and needed someth
ing to set it on.   So, I got   oak 1x4 and basically built two ladders and join
ed them with stretchers top and bottom on either side.   Used a handsaw and a ch
eapie *l*ctr*c dr*ll (for drilling dowel holes).   I still use it - it looks ok.

Construction biz got old so I borrowed some money and came to Georgia to graduat
e school.      Then that fateful day I saw my first episode of the Woodwright Sh
op.   I thought the guy was nuts!   It didn't take long for me to come around an
d I was already familiar with the flea market scene.

During a depressing stretch of the early 90s I lived in an apartment away from m
y tools and had no place to use them.   Finally, I bought a house with a shed in
 the back and six months later I stumbled onto the Porch.   You   folks are goin
g to send me to the poor house. :-)

Ah yes, I fund my addictions by providing statistical support to researchers at 
the Georgia Agricultural Experiment Station.   Also, another fellow and I   are 
buying part of his father's farm and raise a few cows & calves.

Jerry 
-- 

Jerry Davis stampy@s...   Griffin, GA

In a message dated 97-10-03 14:56:46 EDT, leach@s... writes:

<< So, when did it dawn on you that you were given to fits of
handtool fundamentalism?
>>

I'm a pre recorded-bio galoot, so if this makes it to the bio list, it'll
kill 2 birds, I suppose...

In my pre-school days on our central Ky farm, winter days were usually
spent stripping tobacco in the small room off the tobacco barn. I wasn't a
lot of help, but found ways to occupy myself.

One day was spent building cat-shelves around the mostly unused corner of
the stripping room behind the Warm Morning stove. My dad wouldn't turn me
loose with a saw, but he didn't mind me bashing my thumb with a hammer. He
thought it funny, actually. Not one to be deterred by a throbbing thumb, the
project was a huge success. By midmorning I had gathered up a half dozen farm
cats and convinced them to lounge on their new shelves and bask in the heat
while getting a rubdown. By midafternoon, my dad bashed his shin on a cat
shelf, let out a whoop, and a cloud of cats went flying toward the door.
After being used for a springboard by a couple of terrified felines, dear ole
dad sent the cat shelves flying out the door too.

I never built much of consequece after that, until wifey-pooh and I built a
log house and I started doing projects here and there. Trim work and such. As
my skills grew, and with wifey-pooh's encouragement, I made more stuff.

Eventually, I needed to learn how to flatten lumber for furniture projects.
Not wanting to cut my fingers off in a norm jointer, I learned to use hand
planes. After growing tired of cleaning up sawdust from every nook and cranny
of the basement shop after a using a norm router, I discovered molding
planes. Molding planes have been my downfall. I love molding planes. I love
wooden plows. I'm @#$%^^ hooked, dammit !!!!

Ray

Just say, the cats lounge wherever they damn well please, these days.....

The voice I heard came over public television and it was Roy Underhill's
on the Woodwright Shop. (Hey! Not everybody can be born with a Stanley
#8 in his mouth!)

I saw shaving horses, mortise & tenon joints, dovcetails and all sorts
of things that looked neat but I had no idea how to make, much less the
tools to make them with. 

Then one day while visiting relatives in England we were in an antique
shop in Yorkshire and I bumped into a lovely rosewood & brass mortising
guage for about 10 bucks. SWMBO insisted I buy it - bless her!

With that guage I made a M&T workbench a la Roy's. With that bench I
could plane boards and join them together. Since it was pegged, I was
able to move it easily to NC when we left FL 10 years ago. Now the
shaving horse is out back, the draw knives hang in the garage, and
sawdust is always being tracked into the house where we keep the
furniture, bookshelves, harps, cradles, dulcimers, and other wooden
projects that I've made.

Thanks, Roy and SWMBO!

Tom in NC

I too arrived at the porch PB (pre-bio).

I had always been around tools, my dad being in the construction trade. He 
ran a small business in Florida specializing in screened enclosures, 
aluminum and fiberglass. We were never allowed to kill mosquitos, we just 
shooed them over to the neighbor's, the one without the screened porch. I 
worked summers. On hot days the pool looked inviting, 'till you remembered 
that you were above it with a drill in one hand, a metal beam in the other 
and your feet dancing on a 12 inch wide scaffold. We didn't have to worry 
about the boys at OSHA, they'd have been crazy to come around where we 
worked.

Fast forward 20+ years. Married (again), household repairs, etc., etc. Got 
into antiqueing (in Georgia it's ok to turn nouns into verbs) with the 
wife. One day, while flea marketing (see?) I happened into a stall with 
tools. Walked out with a #8...$40...not pretty, but my first old tool. 
Found out that I didn't really need that tailed jointer I was saving for. 
Downhill since. Started receiving boxes from Ashby. I'd order a user and 
wind up with something so spiffy it'd go on the shelf. He does that 
ya'know.

Fast forward three years. Still working with my hands...at a keyboard. 
Having just completed my twentieth year with the University System of Ga., 
I've begun thinking more and more about retirement. Gubment employees do 
that, spend that last 6 - 10 years of their working life planning for 
retirement. Mine is sure to include tools, old ones, and wood working, and 
of course, the porch.

Ray...just say (tm/PL) if this porch ever need screening, lemme know.

Ray McCaleb
(706) 369-5678; FAX (706) 369-6429
ray_mccaleb@o...
Office of Information/Instructional Technology
Business and Finance Systems
University System of Georgia

Paddy requests:
     
>First off, I'd like as many people to respond to this as possible, 
>especially the nearly 200 of you out there....
     
>WHO HAVE NEVER POSTED A BIO!!

        Well, I'm pretty sure I posted a bio quite a while ago, but in case 
there was a clerical error and I'm one of the 200, here goes.  

        In order to support my tool habit, I work as an engineer for a 
chemical company manufacturing coatings.  (Yes, some of these coatings even 
go on wood.)  I've been married to my wife for 8 years and we have 2 lovely 
children, a son(5) and a daughter(3).  We live just outside of Philadelphia 
which I am slowly finding out is almost as rich as New England when it 
comes to old tools.  (Our old tools don't grow in the wild like N.E., we 
actually have to cultivate them. :))  

        I didn't really get into hand tools until about 10 years ago.  And, 
even then, it was quite by accident.  You see, when I was a young lad, my 
Dad worked for the Bell System.  Yeah, he had a full set of all those tools 
that some of us now drool all over.  No planes, but all the stuff you would 
need to install phones.  He would use these around the house for all the 
various upkeep chores.  So, you could probably say, I grew up chewing on 
the end of a Stanley brace and R-J bit.  

        A few years ago, I needed a small entertainment center (more like a 
fancy TV stand) to hold all my electronics stuff.  So I says to myself:  
"Self, you can build this.  You've seen Norm do it."  So, I designed the 
cabinet not knowing anything about furniture design, nor joints, nor 
construction methods.  Went to the local lumber yard and bought some cheap 
pine and started building.  The tools I had at the time were a cross-cut 
saw, Craftsman smoother and a few clamps.  Yes, I'll admit to borrowing my 
Dad's *l*ctr*c*l router to make some molding.  Alot of sweat went into that 
fancy TV stand.  And, alot of knowledge came out of it.  It ain't never 
gonna make the cover of FWW, but it's still holding the TV and all the 
other electronics.  

        Of course, my immediate reaction on completing this project was to 
start buying all kinds of tailed apprentices thinking that I could make 
stuff twice as fast if I had the same tools Norm did.  But, guess what?  My 
output never really increased, but my enjoyment decreased.  I didn't really 
feel like a craftsman, if I ever was one to begin with.  

        It was about this time that I got married and the kids came along.  
The marriage didn't change my woodworking ways too much, but the kids sure 
have.  You haven't really lived on the edge until you're in the middle of 
ripping a board on a RAS when your daughter falls on the cement, with your 
son falling on top of her, both of them screaming in pain and you're trying 
to keep your fingers out of that screaming demon until you can turn it off 
and also keep the board from kicking back at your stomach.  After that, I 
swore off power tools whenever they're in the shop.  And for the most part, 
even when they're not there.

        Believe it or not, I latched onto Oldtools when I noticed that alot 
of the people with knowledge about the various construction techniques of 
old furniture had left rec.the.wood.  At the time, I didn't really care too 
much about the tools side of things.  But, Patrick fixed that when I bought 
my first Stanley #4.  After that I just had to have more.  A coupla' more 
items from Patrick.  A couple from Tom Bruce.  And the next thing you know, 
I'm going to flea markets and tool auctions looking for iron.  No, I don't 
think I'll ever be a dealer or collector, but if I need a tool to complete 
my next project, don't be standing between me and the dealer table the tool 
is sitting on unless your insurance is paid up.

        Well, who would've thought I could be this long-winded.  It's not 
Lamantian, but this oughta suffice as a bio.  Ahh yeah, I almost forgot to 
work my gloat in.  My next project (right behind the 2 honey-do's) will be 
a workbench made from some 4x6 oak timbers I just got from a guy who's 
ripping down an old barn near me.  I only took 250 bd ft at 50 cents per.  
I think tonight I'll give the guy a call and see if I can save him some 
disposal costs by hauling some away for free. ;)

Paul Gillespie

        

Pavel, talking about his upbringing:
 
 
> Then in November of '78 my right arm was off my body for about 30 
>minutes. It was a useless chunk for 2 years. Once it got back to 
>working (My left is useless, I can't hardly eat with it.) I had to 
>give up model making and lapidary as I didn't have the fine control 
>anymore.



> In 87 I cut my right hand mostly off (back of wrist and half of joint 
>were not severed. All nerves and arteries cut. all but one vein cut.) 
>When it was put back on and healed I only can feel my index finger and 
>thumb. Still can't use my left though. :) Armoring became a major pain 
>as with only one vein to drain the hand, it swells with any extended 
>pounding.
> 

Pavel, you lead a dangerous lifestyle, and should probably stay away 
from anything sharper than a tribble.  Next time you hack off a limb, 
perhaps you should block with your left, as it's already useless...

Chuck Phillips
aka Charles Joiner, currently in Caid, formerly from Three Rivers
work: chuck.phillips@c...
play: cphillips@a...

Pavel wrote:



> Then in November of '78 my right arm was off my body for about 30 minutes.
> It was a useless chunk for 2 years. Once it got back to working (My left is
> useless, I can't hardly eat with it.) I had to give up model making and
> lapidary as I didn't have the fine control anymore.



>
> In 87 I cut my right hand mostly off (back of wrist and half of joint were
> not severed. All nerves and arteries cut. all but one vein cut.)  When it
> was put back on and healed I only can feel my index finger and thumb. Still
> can't use my left though. :) Armoring became a major pain as with only one
> vein to drain the hand, it swells with any extended pounding.
>

I don't want to be gruesomely curious - but how does one manage to do this to
one's body in a single lifetime?Was it woodworking related or swordfighting or
something?

Carl - Always interested in learning from other's mistakes.

--
Carl Muhlhausen  ledzep@a...
(732) 576-3052
Personal Web page at:
 http://www.geocities.com/RodeoDrive/2790

Pavel, you lead a dangerous lifestyle, and should probably stay away 
from anything sharper than a tribble. Next time you hack off a limb, 
perhaps you should block with your left, as it's already useless...

[Pavel] 
That's my plan. :)

Oh, I have never lost a limb to a woodworking tool....

Did anyone ever try the Vertius scrapper insert for a plane?

Pavel

I don't want to be gruesomely curious - but how does one manage to do this to on
e's body in a single lifetime?Was it woodworking related or swordfighting or som
ething?

[Pavel]   
First time, I got in a wrestling match with a M60a1e1 tank. 150 lb. vs. 118,000 
lb. I lost. (But they put me back together. :)   )

Second time was falling through a glass door. 

I've yet to hurt myself with a wood working tool.

Pavel

Lets see.... How did I get here ? This is not my .... oops. No 
singing on the list. :)

I started out as a child. I was a curious one, always into something.
I recall lurking in my dads shop looking at tools and messing with 
them. Mostly messing them up. I recall that I ruined the blade of my 
dads one bench plane by trying to sharpen it on the electric 
grinder... free hand. oh well, now I get what I deserve when I find 
one like that on tool hunting trips. 

My dad was a big do it yourself kind of a guy, a blue collar guy in a 
white collar job. He was not a woodworker in any sense of the word 
but he could fix things. I remember helping fix the roof of the 
garage after the big snow of '67' (chicago, january, 20 inches in 24 
hours). I burned my butt putting on the shingles that summer. I 
helped dad do all kinds of things like that. I did small woodworking 
kind of things; estes rockets, balsa & tissue airplane models, etc. I 
also built model cars, and planes and ships. I prefer Revell thanks 
Paddy. I was always making something. I also messed with my bikes 
alot.

As I got older it was working on cars. My first set of tools was 
bought, with my money (gifts) when I was 13. It was a 250 piece set 
of Craftsman mechanics tools. Still have them all today, 25 years 
later. I recall taking $50 off of my dad when he bet me that I would 
not have my car running on Sunday night to go to work. It did look 
grim considering that I had the whole top of the engine off to fix 
the lifters (tappets, Jeff). It was close but it fired on the first 
try as he watched in disbelief. I did some drag racing, rode 
motorcycles (got to get back to that one day) and went thru lots of 
cars. I went to engineering school, intent on becoming a 
mechanical engineer, to design engines or cars, ran into a computer 
and became a midnight hacker. The best laid plans of mice and men, eh 
?

I got the woodworking bug when I got married and need some 
stuff. Small things, shelfs etc. I'll admit that Norm had some 
influence. Ya know even thought we despise him, many of us have to 
thank him for pointing us in this direction. Lots of home remodeling 
jobs latter I discovered hand tools. I still like using a sawzall 
though. :) That was about 2 years ago, just before the list server 
started up. I got my first stuff from my dad. It was junk, fixed with 
parts from Ashby. I then bought some good stuff from Pat and the 
rest is history. Been buying stuff ever since.

Oh yea. Yankees. I sort of collect that stuff. I got about 20 pieces 
of Yankee stuff. It was my dad's #41 push drill and a #233 handyman 
drill/driver (the one with the clear handle) that I recall using 
alot as a kid that got me hooked. Those things are neat ! See, its 
really all his fault. Thanks dad.
--
Jerry Serviss
You can never own too many tools !

Where to begin....
I guess I picked up the "tinkering" ability from my Dad.  He
 was/is what you would call frugal?  He made our first clothes
dryer last 25 + years and then gave it away, still working.  He
build many thngs, but I hesitate to call it woodworking.  They
were'nt pretty, mostly functional.
My paternal Grandfather dabbled with woodworking. He was
building a canvas canoe in the basement when he died.  My
 paternal Great-Grandfather was a cabinetmaker and I have
a cedar chest, solid eastern red ceder, that he made.  My dad
gave me a #3 and #5, a '60's vintage Craftsman crosscut and rip,
and other selected tool (like a 16 lb sledge!).  I can still remember
my Dad chopping mortises for door hinges and not having a chisel
the right size, so he would just pop the iron out of one of the planes
take off the cap iron and go to work.  I cringe at that now.
I had the obligetory woodshop class in 7th grade, but that was it
for training.  I got bit by the Normite bug and started making
Pukey Ducks for my wifes friend (come on, we've all done a
couple of those).
I guess my first epiphany was while attempting to flatten the top
of a china cabinet base with a b*lt s*nd*r.  I had let it sit too long and
the SoB cupped.  After butchering it with the belt sander I decided to
try planing it.  I put a #5 to it and then used a #7 to flatten it,
followed
by a #80 to scrape it smooth.  All done in about 2 hours.  I was hooked.
First ran into the MofA on rec.norm and met him at Crane's in February
 of 93? to buy a replacement iron and cap iron for a #8.  And as they
 say.... the rest is history.

Steve

So that is how all those plane irons get battered at the top.  I thought
it was from minute adjustments.

At 10:47 AM 10/9/97 -0400, Robert Brazile wrote:
>
>Just curious: why cringe? A plane iron is nothing but a wide, flat, unhandled
>chisel anyhow.
>
>Robert
>
>(who's been known to do similar things but hadn't realized this was
>one of the cringe-inducing kind.)
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------

>I can still remember
>my Dad chopping mortises for door hinges and not having a chisel
>the right size, so he would just pop the iron out of one of the planes
>take off the cap iron and go to work.  I cringe at that now.

Just curious: why cringe? A plane iron is nothing but a wide, flat, unhandled
chisel anyhow.

Robert

(who's been known to do similar things but hadn't realized this was
one of the cringe-inducing kind.)

At 10:47 AM 10/9/97 -0400, Robert Brazile wrote:
>>I can still remember
>>my Dad chopping mortises for door hinges and not having a chisel
>>the right size, so he would just pop the iron out of one of the planes
>>take off the cap iron and go to work. I cringe at that now.
>
>Just curious: why cringe? A plane iron is nothing but a wide, flat, unhandled
>chisel anyhow.

It's cringe-worthy when you've seen the mushroomed tops of too many irons.

David

>It's cringe-worthy when you've seen the mushroomed tops of too many irons.

Oh. Sure, if you use a mallet on it.

Otherwise, I find that my plane irons make very nice paring chisels on
occasion.

Robert

Robert,  I cringe because when I close my eyes I can
see all my Dad's plane with their little "mushroom" topped
irons sitting in a nice straight row.  If you hit anything in my
Dad's house, you hit it with a metal hammer.  After all, Dad
 hasn't been an auto mechanic for 40+ years for nothing!.
Steve
(Just say (tm) "Don't force it! Use a BIGGER hammer!!!)

Robert Brazile brazile@a... on 10/09/97 09:47:50 AM

Please respond to brazile@a...

To:   oldtools@l...
cc:    (bcc: Steve Bussell/Iris)
Subject:  Re: The voices within...

>I can still remember
>my Dad chopping mortises for door hinges and not having a chisel
>the right size, so he would just pop the iron out of one of the planes
>take off the cap iron and go to work.  I cringe at that now.
Just curious: why cringe? A plane iron is nothing but a wide, flat,
unhandled
chisel anyhow.
Robert
(who's been known to do similar things but hadn't realized this was
one of the cringe-inducing kind.)

Patrick Leach leach@s... Wrote ...
(edited)

So, when did it dawn on you that you were given to fits of
handtool fundamentalism?

This seems like a really good topic for the Oldtools group.

I too, was given a set of tools and a workbench around my fifth Christmas. I
don't remember much about what I built. My father was a cabinetmaker, and I
do remember making swords and daggers that kept breaking, so he showed me
that I had to select scraps where the grain ran along the length instead of
across it.

In 1966, after a stint in the Army, I tuned-in, turned-on, and dropped-out,
moved to San Francisco then ended up in Venice, CA, where I taught myself to
do leather work and opened a store. I made mostly sandals, belts, handbags
and clothing. I loved designing and making things from leather almost as
much as I liked rooting around junk stores, pawn shops, etc., looking for
old leather tools, and also usable woodworking tools. Hey-*acquiring* old
tools is part of the fundamentalism, too... I was mostly drawn to tools that
were beat to hell, because they seemed *old*. In hindsight, I wish I had
been sharper, and also looked for some in better condition, or some of the
other tools that are great old classics.

After college, where I studied sculpture and design, I became a contractor.
I billed myself as a designer-craftsman, and worked on the old houses around
here (they're from the turn of this century ... not old to a lot of you
east-coasters), and built furniture, mostly in the then-budding post-modern
style, which was based on borrowing heavily from older, traditional, styles.

Being a contractor, I was mostly influenced to use non-handtools, even
though I had used mostly hand tools earlier in my life, especially when
building a cabin and living in the woods with no electricity. I had
continued looking for old tools, and had begun selling them, too. As
building became more about wrestling with 4 by 8 sheets of one thing or
another, I stopped doing it, except to work on my own projects, and began to
spend more time as a tool dealer.

My most recent change to using hand tools was influenced partly by this
group, which made me realize that instead of using a belt sander to smooth
the edge of a board, a plane does a better job, and is not as dusty. It was
also from necessity. I was making some pine bookshelves for my wife at
Christmas a few years ago, and went to the woodworking store for molding.
All the pine molding was made from little finger-jointed pieces, and it
looked terrible, especially since I was using a clear finish. So, I made my
own, using a No. 55. I found it liberating to be able to make my own
moldings, and am planning projects to be built around them. I'm now trying
to get the antique tools storage, cleaning and photographing out of my shop
and into another room so I can use my shop without having to spend a lot of
time cleaning it out first.

Jon