OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

41725 Kelly Cox <kellycox@g...> 1998‑04‑19 BIO: New Galoot
Hello, all;

I'm new to woodworking (haven't done any since I was a kid, and not much
then) and I've decided to go the handtool route as much as possible.

See, I was planning on making my wife a toolbox (the open kind with the bar
across the top) for her horse show stuff, and I tried to use the power
tools in the shop where I work. The table saw scared the heck out of me
when I tried to cut some warped pine I had bought at the local home
improvement megamall.

I had picked up a copy of Fine Woodworking for a cross-country flight
recently, and it happened to be the one with the article by John Brown,
trying to convince everyone to "go organic" with their woodworking. It
seemed silly to me; as a home woodworker, I don't have time to do a 5 year
apprenticeship with some master cabinetmaker, so I figured there was no
sense in going that route. Besides, don't you need a full router table and
table saw and joiner and planer and so forth to make ANYTHING?

Well it finally occurred to me that all that nice old furniture that my
wife likes was mostly made with hand tools (yeah, I'm a little slow at such
leaps of logic).

So here I am a few months later, the toolbox is almost finished (no nails
or screws involved, nosirree) and I have a few tools down in the basement
that I've picked up either at antique shops in the area or new from Garret
Wade. I even sold my pickup and bought a little economy car so that I could
afford this expensive habit. I've had a rude surprise at the cost of some
seemingly useful tools that are being snapped up by collectors that will
never ever use them to cut wood (I talked to one old guy browsing an
antique shop who said he had five Stanley 45's at home, and doesn't do a
bit of woodworking).

So that is why I am here in OldTools. I am in the pre-workbench stage,
trying to use a flimsy old desk as a workbench, and trying to figure out
what to do next.

I live in Madison WI (recently moved from Ithaca NY but am originally a
Californian). I work as a design engineer at a small consulting firm,
mostly designing plastic widgets using expensive computer design software.
Stuff that won't last more than five years, which is probably another
reason to buy old tools that will outlast me.

Once I build a few nice pieces of furniture I might start trying to make
some tools of my own. I'll start with a wooden plane, and someday I might
try making a infill plane. I just talked with a guy in town who does small
casting runs and it might be fun to make a fancy plane.

I'm looking forward to some expert advice from you all, and maybe someday I
can help out some others!

Regards,

Kelly Cox



Recent Bios FAQ