OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

165318 "Syd Griffiths" <storch@a...> 2006‑12‑01 Belated Bio
Guess it's time that I got around to posting this.  In my 57 years I’ve 
operated printing and photo processing businesses, worked as an 
antique-helicopter mechanic and a Mac Tools distributor (professional tool 
nut)  and for the last 25 years have operated a vacuum tank truck business 
located in a beautiful mountain valley in rural central Utah.  Other 
interests include being a private pilot, and recently coming away from a 
benefit auction with a three-year-old mare.

With encouragement of SWMBO,  we started construction last year of a 
woodshop, as an addition to our existing backyard welding & machine 
shop….figuring it might be a GOOD thing to keep the stuff that makes sparks 
away from the stuff that makes sawdust.  It's finally almost habitable.

An old (mostly technical) book and tool collector / user for years, I 
resisted woodworking tools until one day discovering my surname stamped on a 
century-old wooden molding plane made by Griffiths of Norwich.  That led to 
my catching the woodie-bug real bad.  There's something about the way light 
moves across the rays of gently worn beech and the smooth feel of that old 
boxwood that looks like gjetost cheese.....

This summer an acquaintance in a nearby town needed a damaged black walnut 
tree removed, so there's now about 200 bf stickered against one wall of the 
shop.  This area is not noted for fine hardwoods, mostly Englemann spruce 
and Ponderosa (yellow) pine, piñon, Utah juniper, and quaking aspen.  (I've 
been told that a quaking aspen grove is the world's largest living 
organism....all the trees are clones.)   There are some non-traditional 
hardwoods I plan to investigate like scrub oak, mountain mahogany, Russian 
olive, and sage, so feel free to email me if you have particular experience 
with these.

Let me say to you folks up on the porch who are ready to rehash the 
asked-before questions from apprentice-level lurkers like me….you sure have 
my admiration.  Keep on doing it!

Respectfully,

Syd Griffiths

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Recent Bios FAQ