OldTools Archive
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172188 | gmaze@s... | 2007‑08‑06 | Galootapalooza 12! or The Manhattan Project review |
Looks like Mike Duchaj beat me to the punch, but he didn't have the 6-1/2 hour drive I had (thank you downtown Chicago traffic) and I am sure he had a lot more sleep than me... Saturday morning dawned bright and early and as always when I get involved with one of Slav's schemes, I showed up way earlier than expected (stupid Daylight Savings Time, we used to be the same time as Chicago in the summer, now we're an hour ahead), so I am partly to blame for the cleanliness of the shop... The first wave arrived in the late morning and included Mike "The Rat" Urness with the fixings for Sushi, Wes Groot, Mike Duchaj, Matt Mulka and a cast of characters that I have since forgotten due to lack of sleep and a bad memory, which is probably a welcome thing as not everyone may have wanted to be identified due to outstanding warrants, unpaid traffic tickets, terrorist profiling, etc. While Mr. Urness created the sushi (AKA bait food, per Slav and Ralph Brendler), I guarded the table from the very curious and apparently ravenously hungry shop cats. While that was going on, there was lots of talking, drooling over tools and wood, and the general unorganized chaos and laughter that happens when a bunch of galoots get together. About 5 PM the second shift arrived consisting of Ralph Brendler, Mark Van Roojen and Russ Allen. They arrived with a Stickley rocking chair that Mark had found at a flea market and would not let go of until Ralph had bought it. There was quite a bit of visiting, show and tell, BS'ing and an in-depth discussion of how to fix the loose tenon in Ralph's chair, and what to do with the genuine original Stickley bailing wire holding the bottom of said chair together. I always knew that guys were capable of mentally undressing cute members of the opposite sex, but I had never met guys that mentally disassembled chairs before. The next day (after only 3-1/2 hours sleep) we loaded up and headed to Garfield farms for tool pillaging. The day did not start very auspiciously, since it was pouring down rain when I arrived. But after some more BS'ing, visiting under the bottom porch of the main house and breakfast, the rain finally broke and the field slowly opened. For those of you who have never been to a sanctioned tool meet, be prepared for some pretty serious sensory overload. I have been training myself to listen carefully for the sound old iron makes when it is moved around at garage sales, and I think my ears were seriously overloaded that day. Because of the rain, the tools were slow to come out, so the crowd was moving from one site to another all at the same time as each dealer set up his stuff. After about 2 hours of wandering around, Ralph, Wes, Russ and Mark were kind enough to invite me to breakfast where we met up with Mike Lindgren, and of course, more BSing, tool acquisition stories, etc went on. At the meet, I ended up getting a #191 rabbet plane, complete with nicker and depth stop to help my #192 feel less lonely, and a complete #71 to be a friend to the #71-1/2 I already own, not that I am anthropomorphizing my tools at all.... Highlights - Some great Mike Urness sushi. Relieving Ralph Brendler of his old lathe (unfortunately SWMBO and the neighbor that usually helps unload heavy stuff are both out of town so the lathe table is still riding around with me in the back of the van). Yes it is electron powered, but I bought a couple of other hand tools to make up for it. Seeing Mark Van Roojens' very gizmonic automatic door morticing machine. Seeing Russ Allen's 50 cent perfect condition Stanley 79 from a garage sale. Seeing Ralph ID a piece of chipboard from across the room as quilted maple (evidently beer goggles make wood look better, too) Getting a personal tour of Peter Ambrose the abstract woodcarvers studio next door to Slavs (Thanks, Wes!) Watching Mark Van Roojen order crepes with "way more powdered sugar than you would ever expect anyone to use" (direct quote to the waitress) for them and then use most of it. Seeing Slav play his role as file and wood pusher, by leaving files and beutiful chunks of wood everywhere. Getting to meet in person many of the list denizens that I had only met on-line. I have a few pictures, but they are locked up in the camera right now, hopefully I will get some time in the next few days to post them to Galoot Central. Gary Maze Looking forward to next year already ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
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172205 | Kirk Eppler <eppler.kirk@g...> | 2007‑08‑07 | Re: Galootapalooza 12! or The Manhattan Project review |
Milliken, Gordon Spencer (Gordon) wrote: > I'm also ashamed to say that LOML "dragged" me out to the meet > ......In fact, in a dramatic effort to cure me of this sickness, SWMBO > made an ATM run to get more funds - - > > I do want to publicly add my thanks and appreciation to the MWTCA for > this wonderful event, > Ooooh, a KEEPER. Does she have a sister? -- Kirk Eppler in Half Moon Bay, CA, afraid I'm gonna miss the next PAST meet again due to kids soccer. Maybe I can go Friday night. Ken? Process Development Engineering Eppler.Kirk@g... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
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172203 | "Milliken, Gordon Spencer \(Gordon\)" <gsm2@a...> | 2007‑08‑07 | RE: Galootapalooza 12! or The Manhattan Project review |
Gary, I'm a fairly recent lurker, and ashamed to say that while I live in the neighborhood so could have easily made it to Galootapalooza, didn't realize the fun to be had and new friends to be made there - thanks to you and Mike for sharing, and Slav for hosting what sounds like a great time. I am looking forward to getting in on the fun next year! I'm also ashamed to say that LOML "dragged" me out to the meet - whose location is only a few miles from my house. As she described the affair, I supposed I was going to see some farm implements, and might get lucky to see some battered, run of the mill hand tools. WELL - - WOW - - my heart is still racing!! I've never been to a "real" tool meet before, and although I was told that this was a light turnout due to the weather, I saw tools that I never thought I'd see in person, and actually be able to paw over. I must have lost my senses for a bit, 'cause next thing I knew, I had a bag full of goodies, and an empty wallet - - In fact, in a dramatic effort to cure me of this sickness, SWMBO made an ATM run to get more funds - - see, it goes like this: Remember the tale of a parent catching jr. smoking, and in a misguided effort to thwart the emerging habit, forced him to smoke the whole pack at once in order to get him sick, and hence never smoke again - - - - well... I don't recommend this approach when it comes to galooting, but am quite happy that she tried so valiantly. I do want to publicly add my thanks and appreciation to the MWTCA for this wonderful event, and any of you on the porch that added to some enjoyable conversation and rust hunting - - I was the guy walking around with glazed over eyes Gordon Rubbing hands in glee just west of Chicago -----Original Message----- From: gmaze@s... [mailto:gmaze@s...]Sent: Monday, August 06, 2007 12:30 PM To: oldtools@r... Subject: [OldTools] Galootapalooza 12! or The Manhattan Project review Looks like Mike Duchaj beat me to the punch, but he didn't have the 6- 1/2 hour drive I had (thank you downtown Chicago traffic) and I am sure he had a lot more sleep than me... Saturday morning dawned bright and early and as always when I get involved with one of Slav's schemes, I showed up way earlier than expected (stupid Daylight Savings Time, we used to be the same time as Chicago in the summer, now we're an hour ahead), so I am partly to blame for the cleanliness of the shop... The first wave arrived in the late morning and included Mike "The Rat" Urness with the fixings for Sushi, Wes Groot, Mike Duchaj, Matt Mulka and a cast of characters that I have since forgotten due to lack of sleep and a bad memory, which is probably a welcome thing as not everyone may have wanted to be identified due to outstanding warrants, unpaid traffic tickets, terrorist profiling, etc. While Mr. Urness created the sushi (AKA bait food, per Slav and Ralph Brendler), I guarded the table from the very curious and apparently ravenously hungry shop cats. While that was going on, there was lots of talking, drooling over tools and wood, and the general unorganized chaos and laughter that happens when a bunch of galoots get together. About 5 PM the second shift arrived consisting of Ralph Brendler, Mark Van Roojen and Russ Allen. They arrived with a Stickley rocking chair that Mark had found at a flea market and would not let go of until Ralph had bought it. There was quite a bit of visiting, show and tell, BS'ing and an in-depth discussion of how to fix the loose tenon in Ralph's chair, and what to do with the genuine original Stickley bailing wire holding the bottom of said chair together. I always knew that guys were capable of mentally undressing cute members of the opposite sex, but I had never met guys that mentally disassembled chairs before. The next day (after only 3-1/2 hours sleep) we loaded up and headed to Garfield farms for tool pillaging. The day did not start very auspiciously, since it was pouring down rain when I arrived. But after some more BS'ing, visiting under the bottom porch of the main house and breakfast, the rain finally broke and the field slowly opened. For those of you who have never been to a sanctioned tool meet, be prepared for some pretty serious sensory overload. I have been training myself to listen carefully for the sound old iron makes when it is moved around at garage sales, and I think my ears were seriously overloaded that day. Because of the rain, the tools were slow to come out, so the crowd was moving from one site to another all at the same time as each dealer set up his stuff. After about 2 hours of wandering around, Ralph, Wes, Russ and Mark were kind enough to invite me to breakfast where we met up with Mike Lindgren, and of course, more BSing, tool acquisition stories, etc went on. At the meet, I ended up getting a #191 rabbet plane, complete with nicker and depth stop to help my #192 feel less lonely, and a complete #71 to be a friend to the #71-1/2 I already own, not that I am anthropomorphizing my tools at all.... Highlights - Some great Mike Urness sushi. Relieving Ralph Brendler of his old lathe (unfortunately SWMBO and the neighbor that usually helps unload heavy stuff are both out of town so the lathe table is still riding around with me in the back of the van). Yes it is electron powered, but I bought a couple of other hand tools to make up for it. Seeing Mark Van Roojens' very gizmonic automatic door morticing machine. Seeing Russ Allen's 50 cent perfect condition Stanley 79 from a garage sale. Seeing Ralph ID a piece of chipboard from across the room as quilted maple (evidently beer goggles make wood look better, too) Getting a personal tour of Peter Ambrose the abstract woodcarvers studio next door to Slavs (Thanks, Wes!) Watching Mark Van Roojen order crepes with "way more powdered sugar than you would ever expect anyone to use" (direct quote to the waitress) for them and then use most of it. Seeing Slav play his role as file and wood pusher, by leaving files and beutiful chunks of wood everywhere. Getting to meet in person many of the list denizens that I had only met on-line. I have a few pictures, but they are locked up in the camera right now, hopefully I will get some time in the next few days to post them to Galoot Central. Gary Maze Looking forward to next year already ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
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172206 | gmaze@s... | 2007‑08‑07 | Re: Galootapalooza 12! or The Manhattan Project review |
Gordon, You know there may be a reason she went, she probably wanted to limit the damage and not let you consider tapping the savings, 401K, applying for a second mortgage. My wife would probably do the same thing, only tell me she could only get $25 from the machine when she came back. A tool meet like that can be a bit overwhelming for the 1st timer, but I have been told that the MTCA national meets are even bigger and more spectacular, alas I haven't been able to get to one yet. Now if I could just get SWMBO and the 9 year old daughter interested.... Gary Maze With the lathe stand from Galootapalooza still in the back of the van waiting for strong neighbors Kirk Eppler |
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172321 | Ralph Brendler <rebrendler@g...> | 2007‑08‑11 | Re: Galootapalooza 12! or The Manhattan Project review |
It's a week late, but I wanted to wait until I had some pictures to show... Russ Allen, Mark VanRoojen and I took a slightly different approach to Galootapalooza this year. Rather than heading straight to Slavs, we started out at the Kane County Flea market, which used to be the official mosh pit of galootapalooza. I had not been in several years, so we had a great time. The flea was a little smaller than in the past, but there was a lot better stuff at it, and dealers were... well, dealing. When we got there, we all bolted straight for the back field where all of the new stuff is. Well, it appears that the back field of the Kane Country fairgrounds is now a strip mall (just what Geneva needs-- ANOTHER strip mall!). That was the bad news, but the good news is we were in the far corner of the market before just about anyone else, so we started cruising. About the third dealer in, all three of us saw the same thing-- a really nice Stickley-style rocker. Mark put his hand on it claim ownership while we looked it over. We concluded it was legit, and priced fairly, so a quick call to SWMBO later and it had my name on it. http://galootcentral.com/portal/index.php?option=com_copperminevis&Item- id=2&place=thumbnails&album It had several old attempts at repairs, but luckily nobody had done anything non-reversible. Should be a piece of cake to fix up and restore. After a couple of hours at the flea, we had a nice lunch and headed downtown to Slav's. Most of the others had just left, but I did get to meet Gary Maze. There was lots of great food, plenty of adult beverages, and the usual great galoot camaraderie. There's nothing like a galoot get-together... Bright and early the next morning was the MWTCA meet. I got there about 45 minutes late, but nothing had really gotten rolling yet because of a thunderstorm blowing through. About 1 minutes after I arrived folks started opening up, and the show turned out to be great. I didn't buy anything, but managed to sell a couple of things (including my nice old 1950's PowerKraft lathe to Gary Maze). After everyone was sated with tools we went for a late breakfast, highlighted by Mark VanRoojen's "Powdered Sugar Incident" as described elsewhere. By the time I got home on Sunday afternoon, I was exhausted but happy. Another Galootapalooza come and gone, and I'm already waiting for next year... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
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