Welcome aboard Bob!

I did have two questions for the list. The first is for
somerecommended reading. I want to set up and use a small charcoal
forge in my backyard to make more tools. Does anyone have a good
recommendation for a beginners book on blacksmithing, especially for
those of us stuck in suburbia.

I like Practical Projects for the Blacksmith by Ted Tucker

You can start with an old weber, a hair dryer and some lump charcoal.
Iforgeiron.com and Anvilfire.com (the iforge tutorials are great)
arealso great sources of information.

Michael-Frightening the neighbors since the year Four

-----Original Message----- From: Bob Miller  To:
oldtools@r... Sent: Fri, Jun 11, 2010 11:39 pm Subject: [OldTools]
Introducing myself to the list

Hello everyone, After lurking for several months I figured I should
introduce myselfto the list (also several list members I contacted in
private suggested Ido so). So here is a brief history of how I got here.

I think it all started as a little kid when I would watch PBS
everyweekend just to catch woodworking shows. I loved to watch New
Yankee Workshopand I thought Norm was the coolest. I also enjoyed
watching that show with"the weird guy who doesn't know about
electricity" though always wonderedwhy he stuck with hand tools. I
thought though that his woodshop/fort in thewoods was cool (remember I
was like 6). My parents house never had room for a shop and either way I
never had money for lumber so while growing up Ijust waited.

Through college and for a few years afterwords I lived in
apartmentswhich are uncondusive to the large shop required for tools
with sparkingtails. Finally I bought a house 2.5 years ago and decided
it was finally timeto start woodworking myself. I bought used (way
cheaper) wood workingmachines and learned two things. First that I
rather enjoy restoring oldmachines and two that I hate using almost
anything powered by electricity. Ifound myself using my hand tools that
I had bought from a borg store for oddjobs around the house more and
more for my woodworking tasks.

Eventually I bought my first woodworking book, Tage Frid
TeachesWoodworking and saw that many things were possible with hand
tools. I alsoremembered watching St Roy as a child. It was an epiphany
of sorts. At about thesame time my parents got me a subscription to PW
and I started visiting their website. One of the blog posts was either
about egg beater drills orbit and brace (I cant remember which one) and
suggested Sandy Moss's siteto buy said tools. This was about a year and
a half ago. It has gone downhill since then...

So far I have built various shelving units and book shelves, shoptables,
a 3 bin compost containment unit and am currently working on a
coffeetable (once my joints started to look like something other than
absolutetragedies I declared myself furniture ready). I have also built
various shopfixtures and made myself a marking knife, marking gauge and
2 scratch awls. Ifind I like making tools to use almost as much as
furnature.

My wife recently got into lathe work in order to make drop spindles and
various other tools for hand spinning yarn. In the process I discovered
that I also enjoyed turning even though it was a tailed beastie. I
nowhave a shop full of old tools and a love of using them.

That, fellow list members, is my "brief" personal woodworking
history(you can also add a bunch of bleeding, some swearing and a little
bit ofstaring in sadness at parts cut to exactly the right size when I
started withwrong measurements to begin with.

I did have two questions for the list. The first is for
somerecommended reading. I want to set up and use a small charcoal
forge in my backyard to make more tools. Does anyone have a good
recommendation for a beginners book on blacksmithing, especially for
those of us stuck in suburbia.

The second is an identification and use question. This past Christmasmy
parents knowing my new found love bought me a box of rust (literally,all
of the tools needed a lot of love to get working). It was one of the
best presents I have ever received and now I have a bunch of tools that
work beautifully. There is one exception though. It was a spoke shave
thatsome previous owner "restored". And by restored I mean it looks like
hetook the blade and chip breaker to a wire wheel and then just
rustoliumed thewhole body without removing the rust first. After filing
the paint off of the machined surfaces and back far enoughfrom the sole
to stop leaving black streaks on the wood I thought I had avery
comfortable spoke shave. It was far more comfortable than the Stanley151
that also came in said box o rust. Unfortunately the chip breaker
willnot hold the blade in position under use. I have not tried excessive
forcebut no tightness of the screw in the center or the top will hold
it. Does anyone know a remidy for this situation.

Also I have no idea what it is. The blade has the Stanley rule andlevel
"arch" logo. I think I can make out "Balleys patent" on one handle anda
date ending in 1858 on the other. It is hard to read under the
thickcover of paint and getting a rubbing on a curved surface eludes me.

Since without pictures it didn't happen so here are a few
pictures(please excuse the bad camera work, I was too lazy tonight to
get out my lighttent and non phone camera):

http://picasaweb.google.com/105192907109903453543/Tools#548176287-
6098890226

http://picasaweb.google.com/105192907109903453543/Tools#548176245-
1649823298

http://picasaweb.google.com/105192907109903453543/Tools#548176201-
0909582178

http://picasaweb.google.com/105192907109903453543/Tools#548176180-
2444720082

Outside of woodworking I am a software engineer working for a smalllegal
publishing company. If you live in the northeast in a medium sized town
there is a good chance my company codified and published your towncode.
I am 28 and have a wife and a naughty cat named President Nixon.

Anyway... Hi!

  Bob (from Rochester, NY)
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