Gentle Galoots,

Like so many before me I have been lurking here on and off for quite  
some time. Thought I'd say 'hello'.

I've been a woodworker for some twenty years, theater sets mostly,  
and of course my home. I was bitten by the old tool bug on or about  
the time of my dad's retirement some dozen years ago when I realized  
the the old b***ard knew a damn site more about tools than I ever  
will, and that I wish he had paid more attention to what *his* dad  
had tried to teach him back in the day.

So I'm sure that I fit somebody's profile of a neander-wannabe: IT  
guy by day, basement woodworker by night (when home and family  
obligations permit). I own the usual complement of electron killers  
and prefer to scrounge my old hand tools and wood materials wherever  
possible (which is a polite way of saying that my meager salary does  
not permit me to buy from Wenzloff or Knight, though I'd love to...)

I have been afflicted these past few decades with a desire to obtain  
rusty old tools (hand and power), restore them, and put them back  
into use in my own workshop. This is of course not merely a slippery  
slope but a pit as bottomless as one's home or (homemade wooden!)  
sailboat....   The nice D-8 inherited from grandpa inspired a few  
rust-hunting expeditions which, though successful, now require me to  
learn how to sharpen their ilk. The Stanley 2101 inherited from dad  
inspired further scrounging for much older, 18th and 19th Century  
iron braces.... but then one needs a complement of bits... and since  
they're not so plentiful in this neck of the woods (northerly 'burbs  
of NYC) then one must buy or make one's own.... which led inexorably  
to a RR track anvil...  and years later to a garage-sale Trenton...   
My wife looks on with a mix of kindness, forebearance and  
resignation, bless her.

I'm sure this kind of thing is not news to any of you.

I am an occasional reenactor at the local colonial-era restoration in  
my town, have made more than a few modern-day replicas of old tools  
as described in "Ancient Carpenter's Tools" and Moxon for said  
reenactment purposes, and as practice for such events have adapted  
certain colonial forms of furniture for use in my basement workshop  
(e.g.  the whales' tail shelf is my saw-till, the spoon rack is a  
brace-bit holder,  the pipe box holds turnings and wedges for hammer  
handles,  there's a joint-stool made of a doug-fir 4x4 that's my  
chair/stepstool/sawbench -- none of which are works of art by any  
means). I am presently devoting effort to making spokeshave irons,  
tanged chisels and (soon) a replica bitstock/piercer (without the  
fancy brass work, though). That's before I get to the list of real  
furnishings to make. And the list goes on...  Planes or grandfather  
clocks, anyone?

Thanks to all for a useful mailing list and archive. I now return to  
my usual place of lurkature beneath the floorboards where I hope to  
be able to contribute back something of value one of these days.

John Leyden
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