Moses finally presents the bio.
Born in Wooster, Ohio, 1967. My parents were Amish. We lived close to Apple
Creek if my memory serves me right. My grandfather was a buggy maker, no
longer with us. We moved to Indiana when I was two years old, and my
parents bought a car. My dad built a house for us a little south of
Middlebury, IN, some of my first memories of working with wood occured
there. I can still remember some of the shelves we built for friends and
relatives, and I remember sanding my dads tool box to get it ready for the
ugliest gray paint you ever saw, and he still has it today. We would set
up the old table saw in the kitchen and cut away, with the my dad yelling
at us because we wouldn't support the ends steady enough for him and he'd
end up pinching the blade and stalling the saw. I graduated Northridge high
school in 1986. My parents were Mennonites by then, and my dad informed us
that college was only for heathens, so after high school I went looking
for a job. I rather enjoyed woodworking classes in high school, and I
started working in a local cabinet refacing factory in 1986. They let us
use the tools for our own projects after hours, so I started building
stuff, some of it nice enough to get the owners attention. I was soon
building all of their custom cabinets, and remained in that position for
about ten years, parting ways with the company after becoming shop foreman
and trying that out for about a year before deciding the headaches of
people management were not for me. I began work at Riegsecker Hardwoods in
1997, building some decent furniture, ended up becoming foreman there after
a few months, once again lasting about a year. I started my own wood shop
in the fall of 1998, with most of the business I had coming from my former
employer. I built unfinished cabinet boxes for them, not very challenging
in the way of woodwork but still allowing me to play with blocks. I also
installed kitchens, and did some nice custom work locally. Over the next
two years I slowly figured out that business is just not my gig. I'm not
extremely skilled as a craftsman, but that is my niche; a woodworking
craftsman is the job for me. I am currently at work in Shipshewana once
again, building prototype furniture, along with fixing a lot of mistakes
made on furniture and whatever else needs doing. The few years in business
taught me a lot about myself, and I wouldn't trade that for the world. I'm
working on becoming better organized now, and learning to manage my time
and finances better.
I have been interested in hand tools for a long time, but only after
getting on the web was I able to learn some of the skills involved in
making a hand plane functional, and it has been downhill since then. I now
have more planes than I know, although most are still rusty and need
reviving. I have a decent brace and bits, saws that need sharpening,
molding planes, scrapers, about the only thing I'm really still wanting is
a nice little open handle dovetail saw. I also have the complete set of
p*w*r t**ls, which I still use to earn some money. My shop is 24 x 28,
looking similar to a garage but we all know it would rather be a wood
shop. A few months back I tackled dovetails by hand, and am now ready to
take on the world ;)
I married the worlds greatest lady (no offense to Esther and others on the
list, I think I'm prejudiced) Megan, in 1990, and we now have an eight year
old, Mary, and four year old, Miranda. We live in White Pigeon, MI, with
five dogs, a rabbit, a cat, and a horse that we board at a farm a few miles
away. Megan has learned to at least pretend interest in woodworking and no
longer threatens the loss of my tools when I track sawdust into the house.
Her interests are needlework, such as tatting, and animals. She is a full
time mom, home schooling our girls. The girls love to glue scraps together,
and are still young enough that they claim they want to be woodworkers when
they grow up.
So there it is, my entire life contained in a few short paragraphs. My
woodworking goals are to develope my hand tool usage, and build some pieces
for display in shows in the larger cities around this area such as Chicago
and Detroit, and to never stop learning.
Thanks for putting up with me.
Moses Yoder
12140 Riverside Dr.
White Pigeon, MI 49099
|