I'm a 50 year old (bearded) schoolteacher with 4 kids (19,16,5,3) living
in remote northern Wisconsin along the Flambeau River. Laura, my wife,
and I also raise and train Siberian Huskies for breeding, showing, and
recreational dogsled running.
I've been lurking on this list since March of '96. I had always wanted
to make a Windsor Chair and signed up for Mike Dunbar's SackBack class.
I needed a few hand tools, among them a travisher and drawknife, and soon
made the acquaintance of Patrick Leach who provided me with a beautiful
English travisher (which even impressed Mr. Dunbar and his associates).
Mike's chairmaking class was my epiphany re:old tools. First of all, I
was impressed with how much work could be done with the simplest tools.
I also soon became aware of the importance of *quality* in handtools.
Mike said he would never have any regret paying big money for quality
hand tools since he was providing the power and control to use them; if
electricity is providing the power then it isn't as important
My passions are wooden canoes, canoeing, wilderness travel, photography,
and woodworking. I've built several houses and did some custom executive
furniture, but my hand tool interest began with a complete rebuild of a
15.5' 1924 Thompson wood canvas canoe. Few if any right angles in a
canoe, hopefully all sweet lines. I found a simple plane, chisel, and
spokeshave were my most used tools. After several wilderness trips in
the Thompson, I built a 17.5' wood canvas canoe patterned after Rollin
Thurlow's Atkinson Traveller. This entailed making a form over which the
canoe is built. Some power tools were useful in getting out the wood (I
buy all my wood as logs and have them milled or mill them myself), but
with all curves and angles I went mostly by eye guiding plane and chisel.
I am impressed with the quality of writing on this list, as well as the
knowledge of woodworking techniques. I used to keep a separate folder of
clips from rec.woodworking, mostly from Walter Berry and Patrick Leach.
Now I am happy to read posts from them and many others sharing their
experiences. Me, I'm a manic-depressive introvert who just wants to sit
quietly on the edge of the porch, listening. Hope you will excuse my
occasional outbursts.
Dan
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