Bio for Steve Mashl
I'm a bit late getting this out but here it is. Me in a
nutshell.
Professional: Metallurgical Engineer: Ph.D...Postdoctoral
researcher at Ames Laboratory - U.S. Dept. of Energy..(read that
.He doesn't have a permanent job yet)...Prior to obtaining M.S.
and Ph.D. spent 5 years in the steel industry, both as a metallurgist
and as a steelmaker...Prior to that, a tour in naval aviation, a few
years in college and so on...A couple jobs at cabinet making
companies, mostly big power tools and lots of laminated
particleboard... production line stuff.
Woodworking: Been flirting with it for 20 some years...looked at
my copy of Joyce's Encyclopedia of Furniture Making and found
the receipt dated 1977. I'm finally getting more serious about
it. Acquiring tools both power and hand. Love
those hand tools. Nothing beats working in the shop, listening to
classical music, the swish of a plane and watching the shavings curl
off. On the other hand, in the interest of speed, I sometimes put in
the ear plugs and suffer with the dust. Hopefully as my handtool skills
improve the shop will be less dusty.
Projects: New work bench. After working on contraptions made
of 3/4 ply and 2x4's tied in to the basement studs...with 6 penny
nails hammered in where ever I need a plane stop, I am finally
getting around to building a real bench. The base is almost done
and I am debating on how to construct the top. Go traditional with
solid wood or something permanently stable and cheaper? I am
also building an inkle loom for my wife. Pretty simple, but
contains my first hand cut dovetails...I need more practice.
I also have an unlimited number of refinishing/restoration
projects waiting for me. I don't remember for sure, but I suspect
that I came to woodworking via furniture refinishing. While an
impoverished undergraduate attempting to furnish my dwellings, I
quickly discovered that better quality could be had by buying the
old stuff at the resale shops. I am still a sucker for a piece of good
furniture priced low and in need of "restoration". I finally declared
a moratorium on the purchase of such projects. I figured that if I
build my own stuff I would have a completed piece of furniture when done.
Now I have a queue of old planes waiting for me to get to them.
After the workbench and loom are done I hope to make
some furniture, a Morris chair and a Greene and Greene style
coffee table are tentative projects. A cedar strip canoe is another
possibility. Canoeing, backpacking, wilderness travel are some of
my other vices. My idea of a good vacation is 2 weeks in
the woods, solo or with good friends, and the fewer encounters
with other people the better. Of course spending an evening with my wife,
a glass of wine, and Sarah Vaughn on the stereo isn't too bad either.
I have seen a lot of familiar faces on oldtools from
past days in rec.ww. I read Jeff Gorman's thread on using
a SEM to test sharpness-edge holding quality of edged tools...
Previously, we have discussed the loss of temper during
grinding and its correlation with edge bluing...
I do think that we should approach Sorby or Stanley or
someone to fund a little project...we could co-author the
publications...Stranger projects have received money. Enjoyed Ron
Hock's recent description of heat treating infill blades. Nicely done
but I'm unsure about the Curie temp. and the "critical" temp being
the same. Have to look that up.
I thought that the ferromagnetic transformation occurred
at a lower temperature. I also thought that California was the
bastion of the politically correct. "Carbon atoms running off with
oxygen ....." come on Ron.
At any rate, because of the input of the people in these forums
(rec.ww and oldtools), I have been learning stuff at a far, far
faster rate than if I hacked away in my shop on my own. I hope my
participation will prove useful to others as well.
Steve Mashl
mashl@a...
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