OldTools Archive

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22371 <Dnbyr@A...> 1997‑07‑21 Don Boyer Bio
Dear Galoots,

I come from a long line of carpenters, engineers, and jacks of all trades,
and from the time I was very young my father taught me to never be afraid to
fix or make something myself.  By day my dad was a mechanical engineer,
designing cooling systems for heavy vehicles and the automotive industry, and
by night he was a remodelling contractor.  As soon as my brother and I
reached the age of ten or so, we were recruited to do whatever we could, from
carting materials to picking up jobsite waste.  Eventually our abilities
improved and we graduated to the difficult stuff.  You know, digging
foundation trenches, pushing wheelbarrows of cement to that gazebo form a
hundred yards from the nearest spot where the cement truck could park, to
lugging bundles of shingles up a ladder to a second-story roof on a
blistering August afternoon.  It was a great education, and it taught me that
the last thing I ever wanted to be in life was a carpenter.

Today I'm a record executive in Nashville, Tennessee (no, not in country
music).  Please don't send me your demo tapes.  I have tapes from three years
ago I still haven't had time to listen to.  I like my work a lot, but it's
fast-paced and stressful, so I enjoy the escape provided by my hobbies, which
include various types of woodworking, home-brew electronics (for music
reproduction, mostly), photography, music-making, writing, and traveling to
historic and scenic places with my family.  Unfortunately, I have little time
for any of these activities.  With two young children at home, there's always
a game to be played or a kit to be built or a book to be read, and I have to
say that I love being a Dad, even though it's not easy and I generally feel
too tired to do it well.  SWMBO is a studio singer, which means she sings
backup vocals for albums which feature other artists, some of them
well-known, some of them not, some of them good, some of them really awful.

I started acquiring old woodworking tools about ten years ago to restore some
old furniture we'd picked up on the cheap.  At first, I bought only tools I
thought I could use.  But for every tool I bought, I soon encountered a
"better" one, sometimes at a lower price, and in no time I had boxes full of
old tools in the garage.  I started keeping the best to use and selling the
others at our semi-annual garage sales.  For those first few years I was in
denial, but when I finally found out about John Walter's incredible book on
Stanley tools and got my own copy, I realized I could be completely happy
owning tools I would never use, so I stopped selling tools in our garage
sales and began acquiring them whenever I found them at affordable prices.  I
came to grips with my addiction and now admit without apology that I am an
avid tool collector.

But I still use tools, too.  I've restored a number of pieces of antique
furniture, from replacing chipped veneer and repairing cracked door panels to
shortening an old mirror lyre to replace the missing towel bar on a
turn-of-the-century oak wash stand.  I've repaired a number of musical
instruments, mostly guitars, but also a violin, an ebony clarinet, and a
mandolin, which would have been better left unrepaired.  I've also built
furniture and an electric guitar from scratch.  My first piece, built in the
early years of my marriage, was a waterbed built of oak plywood with solid
oak trim.  I owned only a hammer, p*w*r drill and auto mechanic's tools at
the time, so I had the plywood ripped and crosscut to dimension at the lumber
yard.  I bought a nice hand-powered mitre box and hand-fitted all the trim so
the corners were mitred but could be disassembled for moving.  Sold the
waterbed when we got tired of sweating all night.

My last major furniture project was an entertainment center for my
mother-in-law.  The idea was to create a 19th-century looking piece which
could house a television and stereo.  My "client" liked the look of painted
pine furniture, but didn't want it to be too primitive.  I came up with a
design that looked like an old linen press when the doors were closed, but
the doors open and slide back into the cabinet with modern Accuride hardware.
 To disguise this fact, I mortised the door hinges and, instead of screwing
them to the carcass and the door, I screwed both flaps of the hinge to the
carcass, so the barrel of the hinge shows, but isn't attached to the door.
 Only the Accuride hardware is attached to the door, but it's hidden.  When
the doors are closed, it appears the hinges are attached to them and would
work normally.  I rough-dimensioned all stock on my t*bl*s*w (I'm not the
least bit ashamed to use one, given my limited leisure time), then finished
all surfaces with a Bedrock 605 to create that appearance only hand planing
produces.  I used a Stanley 10 to rough out the raised panels and a Stanley
140 rabbet block plane to finish them.  I made most of the moldings with
various wooden molding planes in my collection (it takes me an entire
Saturday to tune a complex molder, but it's worth it) and a Stanley 45, and I
modified a commercial molding with round and hollow planes and a rabbet plane
for the central section of the crown molding.  Workpieces were held in the
vises on my home-made maple workbench (based on a plan in Woodsmith
magazine).

Current projects include a scratch-built pair of high-end audio speakers, the
cabinets made of MDF (don't smirk, it's the preferred material for speakers
due to its damping characteristics) and covered with mahogany veneer, and the
restoration of a cello.  The former project is spread out all over the family
room, and pieces of the latter cover the dining room table and have since
Christmas.  Future plans include a pair of painted book cases for the living
room that look "built in" but aren't (want to be able to take them when we
go), a tiger maple "tray top" tea table with cabriole legs, a tool cabinet
for my users to go in the garage, and another tool cabinet for my collection
to go in the family room.  Oh yeah, and another electric guitar, an acoustic
guitar, a classic tool chest, a jewelry box for SWMBO, a classic Sectretary
bookcase, a . . . . 

Anyway,  I happened to find Patrick Leach through my tool collecting
activities and he turned me onto the Porch, although due to my own ignorance
of how the the listserv works it's taken me several months to actually get
here.  I've been lurking for a few days and feel right at home.  You guys
care about things I do, although I'd say some of you need to lighten up about
p*w*r tools, Norm, and tool collecting, all of which have their place in a
well-ordered world (I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunities to defend my
positions).  Anyone who can rough-dimension by hand all the stock required
for a major project has entirely too much free time and should become a more
productive member of society.

I look forward to participating and hope you won't get the idea I think I
know it all.  I happen to be obsessive about old tools and have soaked up a
lot of information from books (I own dozens) and the old-time users &
collectors I've been privileged to meet over the past five or six years.  I
love sharing what information I can, and I'm always willing to learn
something new.

Oh, by the way, I hope it won't be considered a violation of the
commerciality rules to mention that I finally reached the breaking point with
SWMBO so I keep a list of duplicate and excess tools for sale which is
available by e-mailing me or at the Electronic Neanderthal site.  I buy old
tools of all kinds, with an emphasis on items in really clean condition.
 Please let me know what you have for sale!

My dream is to retire in seven years to write novels and build reproductions
of classic American and English furniture by (mostly) hand, one piece at a
time.

Yours, 

Don Boyer
dnbyr@a...



Recent Bios FAQ