Seeking #70 Box Scraper for a REALLY good cause *LINK*
Clay C in Miami
>On vacation last week, I met a Tlingit woodcarver named Tommy Joseph. He is a very interesting guy, and does some beautiful work.
While we were talking tools, he showed me a Stanley #70 Box Scraper. (I guessed it was a floor scraper - wrong, but not too embarrassing). Given the rarity of the need today to plane painted words off of wooden crates, Mr. Leach suggests in B&G that these might serve as fish scalers, but does not recommend them for iced-over windshields.
But, Mr. Joseph has another use, thus this message. He uses them in planing long, sweeping sections of carved dugout canoes. Given that they carve green, this makes sense. The totem master carvers of Alaska are convening - this Monday the 16th in Ketchikan! - to work together on two totems and a fully-carved dugout canoe. (I had to find out about this while I'm there, naturally - otherwise I'd be in Ketchikan next week for the event!)
I've never figured out how to put more than one link in here, so the the address of a posting on the carving event is here, and the link to a short film of Mr. Joseph is below (though I wish they would have shown him using that cord-wrapped adze instead of sanding!):
http://p207.ezboard.com/fsoutheastalaskamessagecenterfrm11.showMessage?topicID=88.topic
Anyway, he said he was hunting for another Stanley #70 Box Scraper for the use of a totem-carver student of his. And, it occurred to me that a member here might well have a duplicate of this item, and be happy to donate it for this very worthy end.
A VG one just sold on eBay for $11, so it doesn't appear to be a big-money item. There's a later (red-handled) one currently listed on eBay, and if no one here has one to spare, I'll just buy that one and send it along. But, before I do, if one of you has a good user model of this he or she might spare, for the use of a budding totem student, I'm sure Mr. Joseph would be appreciative.
His address (per Yahoo) is:
Tommy Joseph
620 Merrill Street
Sitka, Alaska 99835
His studio (and many beautiful totems, new and old) are at the Sitka National Historical Park (http://www.nps.gov/sitk/). If you travel in Alaska, do see it (and the Jackson Museum just down the street, for other Tlingit and Haida carved wonders).
Drop me an email if you send him a spare user #70, so I won't buy him the eBay one?
Thanks to all,
