Hi

Its time for me to de-lurk.  I have spent about a week listening
to the various discussions on the porch and I suppose it is only
right that I make myself known.

I work building high-end graphics machines at SGI (the best place
in the world to work on this stuff - I am lucky).  I was born
in South Africa and lived many years in Israel before coming to
the States.  As a kid I had no exposure to woodworking at all.
My dad has two left hands and hates for them not to be making
money.  It was also strangely frowned upon for a jewish kid to
actually work with his hands (I have subsequently heard this from
many kids that grew up in the west in families from Eastern Europe).
So I have no history.  I always loved building things (rc planes,
computers, speakers etc) so naturally when I realised I could
actually afford to buy tools I started a serious normesqe
collection.  I used to read r.ww in the old days (5+ years back)
and was impressed by the worthy P Leach's "just say" posts.  I
thought anyone that cantankerous, must know what its all about,
so I bought a #5 from him and that started it.  Actually it was
the whisk of the plane as it took a perfect shaving off a piece
of cherry that turned me on.

I found out (sort of a family secret it appears) that my maternal
grandfather, who died before I was born, was a cabinetmaker in the
old country (Lituania).  Of course, my mother and her brother
got rid of his tools before I could walk.  My parents have a circular
coffee table that he made in their house in Israel.  Its nice.
I have tried finding out more about late nineteenth and early
twentieth century woodworking in Eastern Europe, but I have not
found much written on the subject.

I am trying to get better at the hand tools thing.  I do not
have the skill.  Its a kind of paradox, in order to get skilled
you need time - I am an amateur with a demanding day job, so I
have little time, normtools require much less skill and so I can
(rather guiltily) get more done in less time.  And of course
nothing appeases swmbo like actually building things.

I would love to do a "appenticeship" with someone skilled.  A few
hours a week would help immensely.  There is just so much you can
learn from reading (I tell everyone my hobby is reading about
woodworking).  Two weeks ago I stumbled on a #20 in really good
condition at a garage sale.  I paid very little for it and just
fell in love with its simple functionality.  I suppose it was this
buy that resparked my interest and made me want to become a galoot.

I even ordered a cap.

Thanks for the time.

peter

At 11:27 AM -0700 5/16/97, Peter Ostrin wrote:
		[Snip most of nice bio]
>I would love to do a "appenticeship" with someone skilled.  A few
>hours a week would help immensely.  There is just so much you can
>learn from reading (I tell everyone my hobby is reading about
>woodworking).

	I'm convinced that most regulars on this list have at least two
hobbies besides woodworking:
	1)  Hunting, cleaning, sharpening, and tuning old tools
	2)  Keeping up with the list traffic

	And while hanging out on the porch is not quite a virtual
apprenticeship, it is a place filled with an immense and diverse range of
expertise related in one way or another to handtool woodworking, readily
shared.  So if you come up against a problem, just ask, and someone will
try to help, with no further questions about how you got to be so ignorant
;-)
	Then someone else will likely chime in with an alternative answer,
and another thread will be born, for our mutual edification and diversion.
	Welcome to the porch.
		Tom Holloway
Just say (tm), ignorance and skill level are relative things.