Hello,

My name is John and I buy old tools.
I am 47 years old and have been married almost 25 years.
My wife Lynn works in Sacramento as part of a Stanford/Berkeley think tank.
We have two daughters, Brenna, 18, and Laurel 15.
I was raised doing production carpentry.
In the early '70's, while studying furniture design at the University of
California I became interested in the use of hand tools.

While I love the concept of Krenov style fine cabinetmaking I have found
that I'm not particularly tempermentally suited to it. I am happiest doing
"production fine carpentry" in the shop.
I have been designing and building wooden rowing skiffs and oars for the
past 17 years. I have also built a half dozen or so pretty good
workbenches.
For money I build and remodel houses.
My current shop projects include a light skiff for a friend, a new
clamshell toolbox for me, and a little pine grandmother clock for my wife.

I have been reading this listserv for the past couple of weeks, and find
myself looking forward to it. I especially enjoy reading Jeff Gorman for
his sense of practicallity and continuity.

My reasons for making myself known are mostly selfish. I have a number of
concerns regarding the care and use of my old tools that I have been trying
to work through. I am hoping that the act of writing these questions out as
clearly and concisely as possible might, besides helping me better
understand them, also prompt the collective conciousness of this group to
kick loose a little wisdom.

Some of the topics I've been concerned about:

1. Using, abusing and using up, old tools, and my own working set of widows
and orphans.

2. Owning an old toolbox. How far do my responsibilities go? Am I
maintaining an icon to an adopted grandfather, or is it just another
working set?

3. Stamping my name on my tools, when? why?

4. Getting rid of tools. How the hell do you do it?

5. That damned patina. What ABOUT the Sistine Chapel?

I looking forward to taking part in this group, and will gladly answer all
notes.

Incidentally, I have in the past exhibited a wee bit of a problem with
arrogance and temper (I'm from California, we're big into introspection and
recognizing our flaws) so, generally I let my replies "cool" overnight, to
be proofed before sending.

John, or as my name stamp says, J.E.DELAPP





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