Re; Tool Story...revamped and lengthened
Mike G.
>A story about a man, his tools, and using them
Jim was an old cuss. He stood six feet tall with a
bushy beard and long hair that hung down to the middle
of his back. His hazel eyes still had a sparkle in
them, though, especially when the talk got around to
old tools and using them. Most people thought he was
ornery and hard to talk to,it was just an act though.
The people that did know him, knew Jim to have
a heart of gold, he would literally give you the shirt
off his back if you needed it, but don't touch his
tools,they were his pride and joy, his only vice.
Jim had a disease, you see, he collected old tools, if
they had to do with working wood, he had to have them.
Back when he first started collecting old tools, they
called it the slippery slope, people talked about the
slide down the slippery slope, well, old Jim didn't
just slide, he jumped straight down the slope with
both feet.
He knew he didn't have much time left and was
agonizing over what to do with his collection of
antique tools. He wanted to leave them to someone who
would use them, not put them up on a shelf like a
bunch of trinkets or doodads like some of the rich
folks he used to work for. He was proud of the fact
that he had never bought a tool unless he had a use
for it, nevermind that he would make up a project just
so he could buy a coveted tool. It wasn't enough
though, to use it one time and put it up, he had to
"Know" the tool, he would fiddle with it and use it
until he had mastered it.
The hand tools were all he had left, the woodworking
machinery and hand held power tools had been sold off
to finance his craze for antique tools . His kids
wanted him to get rid of the rest of his old tools
they thought they were junk, they didn't realize
what a treasure was hanging on the walls in his shop
and in his old tool chest. He had tried to interest
them in using the tools, but they had better things to
do with their time. Time, he thought; What a fickle
mistress she is. Sometimes he wished for the days
before video games, satelite television and the
internet. His kids were enamoured with all the new
technology, PDA's in their hands and cell phones
"glued" to their ears. Jim hoped he could interest his
new grandson in his tools and hoped he'd be around
long enough to teach him how to use them.
Jim let his arthretic hands caress the Rosewood tote
of the Stanley No. 4C type 17 hand plane, the lacquer
finish on the Rosewood knob and tote was worn smooth
from years of use. This plane, this finely tuned
piece of cast steel and exotic wood was old,
considered an antique when his grandfather gave it to
him. The feel of the Rosewood as he ran his hand over
it seemed to give him new found energy. He picked the
plane up with both hands, feeling the weight of it, he
limped over to his work bench and put a Maple board in
the vise. With knowing fingers, he adjusted the iron
for a fine cut and ran the tool down the edge of the
board several times. The shavings came out of the top
of the plane and floated through the air, curling
around his feet. I've still got it, he thought to
himself. A smile touched the corners of his mouth as
he went back and put the tool back in it's place.
He looked with pride at his tools and the chest he had
built to keep them in. The old chest had seen a lot of
use through the years, He remembered when he had
built it, he was just a journeyman carpenter back
then. It was just a run of the mill six board chest with
dovetailed joinery and five sliding trays, also
dovetailed, it was made of Honduran Mahogany, The
trays were made of Poplar with Quartersawn Heart Pine
bottoms, wood scavenged from the scrap pile. He had
traded a weekend's worth of work for the Mahogany.
The lid of the chest was four inches deep and had
catches for his hand saws so that his saws didn't
rattle against the rest of his tools. There were three
saws stored in the lid, an old Disston & Sons D-8
thumbhole rip from the late 1800's, another Disston,a
No. 6 crosscut, and a Disston No. 4 back saw. He also
had a couple of Disston miter saws, all of his saws
were sharp and ready to work, and a beautiful
Lie-Nielson brass backed dovetail saw, given to him
for a retirement gift, stored in a till that fit into
the bottom of his chest.
The top sliding till held all his layout and measuring
tools, his favorite being the rosewood and brass
mortice gauge made in England at the turn of the
century, he had bought it on a whim at an antique
store while window shopping with his wife, the price was
high, but he bought it anyway. The next till held his
chisels and gouges, Buck Brothers and S.J. Addis being
some of the makers. The next till held his Miller
Falls cigar shave, craftsman made aluminum spoke shave
as well as his Stanley No. 66 hand beader and a couple
of scratch stocks he'd made. The tray also held his
shoulder planes, as well as his sharpening gear. The
fourth till held two of his favorite braces and
assorted bits. The bottom till was where Jim kept his
notes, papers and old tool ads cut out of magazines
and newspapers. The trays could be lifted out to give
him easier access to the larger tools and bench planes
in the bottom.
He also had an old cabinet maker's bench, left in the
barn when he and his wife bought their house, it had
an end vise and a fancy tail vise, as well as a leg
vise and the screws on all the vises were made of
wood. The top was massive, about three and a half inches
thick, it was also in sad shape when he found it. He had to clean the crud off of it and chase the bats out of the barn so he could use the building. He refurbished the beechwood top of the bench and turned the barn into his shop. It was "his place", his wife had "her place", a sewing room in the house. Jim didn't go in there except for the couple of weeks it took him to build shelves and cabinets for her cloth and such, and his wife didn't go into his shop. If she needed him, there was an old iron triangle hanging from the beam on the back porch she would clang to bring him to the house.
He had plenty of time on his hands. The high
point of his day was to go out to his workshop and
use his old tools, every tool he picked up brought
back memories of where he had bought it and for what job. He remembered the job he'd bought the Stanley No. 45 Type 7 for. It was a room addition to a Victorian style house from the late 1800's. The home owner wanted the new trim to match the original trim and the only way Jim knew how to make it was with a Plough and Beading plane since a set of Hollows and rounds and complex molding planes were very hard, almost impossible to come by. He had convinced the woman that the new trim needed to be made with hand tools, thus his acquisition of the specialty plane. He still had the original Chestnut box with the label, and all of the cutters, plus several special cutters he had made for himself.
He also had another major affliction, he was a
packrat, he couldn't bear to throw anything away. Jim knew what was in his collection down to the last drill bit and where to find any type of hardware. He also had quite an assortment of exotic wood, few of the pieces were very big, but they would be large enough to use for drawer fronts and to cut inlays for decoration. His pride and joy was the large slab of Brazilian Rosewood he'd had for over fifty years. He also had a large assortment of domestic hardwoods stacked in his shop up in the rafters.
Jim had always admired the Studley tool cabinet and he knew he couldn't make an exact copy of it, afterall, he had only seen pictures of it in old woodworking magazines. He didn't want an exact copy of it anyway, he had just admired it like
every other woodworker had over the years since it had been built. He figured he had enough lumber to build one last project, a fancy tool cabinet with all the bells and whistles. He invisioned inlaid drawer fronts and tight fitting places for every tool and a hidden drawer, every fancy tool cabinet needs a hidden drawer.
Hope y'all enjoy and hopefully more to come later.
Mike Guenther
