OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

256081 Ed Minch <ruby1638@a...> 2015‑09‑02 Personal satisfaction
Hey all:

I want to share with  you something that has been happening to me for the last
5-6 years or so.

I am 66 and have been building stuff out of wood since before I was a teenager.
I have built houses and additions, boats big and small, furniture of all types,
musical instruments, kitchen cabinets, fancy flooring, soap box derby racers,
garden enhancements, and a bit of everything that has come along.  I have always
built things because it was fun and at times profitable.  I have used hand tools
and, in my earlier years, m*ch*n*s.  I have always felt s sense of pride and
accomplishment at various stages through a project, and that is what has kept me
going.

But lately, for the last few years, I have felt at times an overwhelming sense
of joy.  My latest project is a perfect example.  It is a white oak guitar with
plenty of bling, and at 3 stages during construction I have spontaneously burst
out in laughter with a mental high that rivals anything I have bfelt so far.
This morning was the fourth time when I got back a part of this guitar that I
collaborated on with a local artist.  This feeling lasts for a couple of hours
and is among the most deeply satisfying feelings I have had - rivaling family
highs.

Has anyone else felt this joyous emotion with your woodwork or other
trade/craft/hobby?

I know, no pictures - it didn’t happen.  In about a week you will get more
pictures than you need.

Ed Minch
256082 Paul Gardner <yoyopg@g...> 2015‑09‑02 Re: Personal satisfaction
>I know, no pictures - it didn’t happen.  In about a week you will get more
pictures than you need.

>Ed Minch

Geez Ed, with anticipation like this a Minch inspired luthiery "advent
calendar" wouldn't be out order.

Paul, in SF - who can hardly wait and congratulates your accomplishments
and happiness.

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 7:52 AM, Ed Minch  wrote:

> Hey all:
>
> I want to share with  you something that has been happening to me for the
> last 5-6 years or so.
>
> I am 66 and have been building stuff out of wood since before I was a
> teenager.  I have built houses and additions, boats big and small,
> furniture of all types, musical instruments, kitchen cabinets, fancy
> flooring, soap box derby racers, garden enhancements, and a bit of
> everything that has come along.  I have always built things because it was
> fun and at times profitable.  I have used hand tools and, in my earlier
> years, m*ch*n*s.  I have always felt s sense of pride and accomplishment at
> various stages through a project, and that is what has kept me going.
>
> But lately, for the last few years, I have felt at times an overwhelming
> sense of joy.  My latest project is a perfect example.  It is a white oak
> guitar with plenty of bling, and at 3 stages during construction I have
> spontaneously burst out in laughter with a mental high that rivals anything
> I have bfelt so far.  This morning was the fourth time when I got back a
> part of this guitar that I collaborated on with a local artist.  This
> feeling lasts for a couple of hours and is among the most deeply satisfying
> feelings I have had - rivaling family highs.
>
> Has anyone else felt this joyous emotion with your woodwork or other
> trade/craft/hobby?
>
> I know, no pictures - it didn’t happen.  In about a week you will get more
> pictures than you need.
>
> Ed Minch
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> OldTools is a mailing list catering to the interests of hand tool
> aficionados, both collectors and users, to discuss the history, usage,
> value, location, availability, collectibility, and restoration of
> traditional handtools, especially woodworking tools.
>
> To change your subscription options:
> http://old
tools.swingleydev.com/mailman/listinfo/oldtools
>
> To read the FAQ:
> http://swingleydev.com/archi
ve/faq.html
>
> OldTools archive: http://swingleydev.com/ot/">http://swingleydev.com/ot/
>
> OldTools@s...
> http://old
tools.swingleydev.com/mailman/listinfo/oldtools
>
256084 Thomas Conroy 2015‑09‑03 Re: Personal satisfaction
Ed Minch wrote: "... lately, for the last few years, I have felt at times an
overwhelming sense of joy.  My latest project is a perfect example.  It is a
white oak guitar with plenty of bling, and at 3 stages during construction I
have spontaneously burst out in laughter with a mental high that rivals anything
I have bfelt so far.  This morning was the fourth time when I got back a part of
this guitar that I collaborated on with a local artist.  This feeling lasts for
a couple of hours and is among the most deeply satisfying feelings I have had -
rivaling family highs.

"Has anyone else felt this joyous emotion with your woodwork or other
trade/craft/hobby?"


My "overwhelming sense of joy" moments seem to come from research. A couple of
weeks ago I I traveled 25 miles to get a copy of a four-page article identifying
the man who bound this:
https://www.cs.tcd.
ie/John.Byrne/libproj/book7.jpg
and this
https://www.cs.tcd.
ie/John.Byrne/libproj/book4.jpg

in eighteenth-century Dublin. No research collection in the country has a file
of the "Bulletin of the Irish Georgian Society" volume 35, but I ran it down in
the crammed one-room library of the United Irish Cultural Center in San
Francisco. I found it on the shelf after the (volunteer, but professional)
librarian drew a blank. Read it waiting for the trolley home. I kept laughing
with joy as I read it, and it kept me smiling for a couple of days: its a
brilliant piece of research based on a lucky find, a discovery that is simple
but very important (in my field), and clearly and elegantly written.
I don't seem to get the same rush out of things I make; I'm too much aware of
the things that went wrong until a long time after I make them. By the time I
really enjoy them, the shock is gone.
Tom Conroy
256085 Scott Garrison <sbg2008@c...> 2015‑09‑03 Re: Personal satisfaction
Ed Minch wrote: "... lately, for the last few years...

>
> "Has anyone else felt this joyous emotion with your woodwork or other
> trade/craft/hobby?"
>
> Well I may be a whippersnapper to some here on the porch but I like to
think I have gained enough wisdom to believe that is a sign of a man who
has recognized his true calling...what it is that makes him tick. Kudos Ed.
Unfortunately for me my many interests are spread so thin that I tend
toward maniacal laughter and choose to ignore the stares from those around
me

Scott in duluth
256086 Ed Minch <ruby1638@a...> 2015‑09‑03 Re: Personal satisfaction
Tom

Beautiful work - what is inlaid in the surface, the lighter colored stuff?

Ed Minch

> and this
> 
> https://www.cs.tc
d.ie/John.Byrne/libproj/book4.jpg
>
256087 Mark Pfeifer <markpfeifer@i...> 2015‑09‑03 Re: Personal satisfaction
I was already amazed at how awesome this list is for advice about wood and
tools.

Now I’m starting to be amazed at how valuable it is as a form of therapy. 

Not a hint of facetious in me when I make that comment. I found a lot in both
Ed’s original note and in Scott’s short reply that resonated with me; Ed’s gave
me a huge dose of hope. Scott’s I was able to find consolation in.

I’m a whippersnapper here too. Started working wood seriously a year ago. Joined
this listerv about six months ago. I’m 46 this year.

Ed, I do have flashes of the kind of joy you describe. I find it all over the
place, and if there’s a real pattern to when it happens I’ve not found it. I may
be looking too hard and getting in my own way. I can get it listening to a hawk
screeching from the top of one of my 300 year old white oaks on a clear Carolina
blue sky day. I get it every time I hear the owls in my forest at night. A
sunrise always gives it. Not sunset. I get it when I remember to be grateful.

In a galoot context . . . .  I get that joy when I buy a “dogmeat” hand plane or
chisel and make it useful again without robbing it of any of its history or
battle scars.

I get it in spades when I use a transitional plane that I got as dogmeat but now
makes that glorious hissing sound with effortless motion. I got it last night
working on some southern yellow pine in the process of building a spring pole
lathe. Largely due to advice given by the people on this list, I’ve gotten
pretty good at glueing up. (I’m the guy who panicked over his bench top a couple
months ago.) I have the stock for the sides of the lathe glued up and last night
was time to do the final post-glue-up end planing.

Two 3/4” southern yellow pine boards . . . . times two . . . locked beautifully
to the front of the bench I built with my own hands . . . with face dogs of my
own design . . . held granite solid by face vice that I improvised out of a
wooden screw that’s probably 200 years old . . . . my Stanley 129 and 34 making
that hss hss hss with the shavings popping beautifully and floating like
feathers . . . . I have a block of beeswax that Ray gave me, which he claims to
have picked up old in the early 60’s .. . . . and the smell of the pine and that
beeswax on the bottom of the plane . . . just remembering it is bringing back
the joy. And it was only last night so I know it’s not nostalgia.

I get that joy when I design something. I’m on a tight budget and other than the
occasional trip to the BBS for some dimensional lumber, everything I have to
work with is scavenged and repurposed. I don’t work to plans and I doubt I ever
will. I get joy out of making a design work with no ruler, only marking gauge,
bevel, engineer’s square, caliper and compass. The compass I bought new, the
bevel Ray bought in the 60’s, everything else is 100+ years old. If I design it
with repurposed scraps and it stands up and stays together when I’m done, that
gives me joy.

Yet I get Scott’s point too. I have 7 kids (yes, one wife; no, no twins; no, not
Mormon, yes Catholic) and they all have sports and activities. I had to sell my
F250 quad cab diesel 4wd for a Jetta because I put 10,000 miles a year on it
driving the kids around. When I’m not traveling for work, or leading conference
calls at all hours with participants from India, England and California. The
Jetta holds a surprising amount of repurposed scavenged wood, and I laugh every
time people with pickups and SUV’s at the BBS stop to watch and see if I can
really fit all that lumber into such a small car.

So “maniacal laughter and ignore the stares” . . . . that hit right home, Scott!

Right now my only real anti-joy is when I look at the execution of my design
from a technique point of view. I like using my mid-vintage Stanley 78. But I
love using my Kellogg Amherst MA rebate plane even more. It’s wooden, and has
150+ years of sweat and work in it. When I got it the iron was rusted into the
wood. It lost its depth stop ages ago so when I make a lap joint I have to hss-
hss-hss-hss then put the engineer’s square on it to see if I’m at depth. It
doesn’t have a knicker so crossgrain I have to use the knife. And when that lap
joint is assembled I can see lines and it frustrates me. I know if I used my
dusty and neglected $200 big-balls power router I could cut that joint almost
perfect in one pass, undercut the 90 a little with the striking knife, and I
wouldn’t see the lines.

I look at the router in its hard case on the shelf and heft the perfect weight
and balance of the salvaged Kellogg with it’s scary-sharp 3/16” thick iron that
was forged by hand . . . and I can usually come out neutral in the joy
department because most of what I’m building right now is for me and not for
sale or gifts.

That’s why Ed’s note was an inspiration and a hope. I have 20 years to arrive at
no-lines joints without the big-balls power router, by which time they’ll
probably be selling fission powered laser guided robots for milling work, or
home 3D printers that operate by voice command. But the Kellogg will still be
the Kellogg and I know the joy quotient will be sky high . . . . .






> On Sep 3, 2015, at 6:34 AM, Scott Garrison  wrote:
> 
> Ed Minch wrote: "... lately, for the last few years...
> 
>> 
>> "Has anyone else felt this joyous emotion with your woodwork or other
>> trade/craft/hobby?"
>> 
>> Well I may be a whippersnapper to some here on the porch but I like to
> think I have gained enough wisdom to believe that is a sign of a man who
> has recognized his true calling...what it is that makes him tick. Kudos Ed.
> Unfortunately for me my many interests are spread so thin that I tend
> toward maniacal laughter and choose to ignore the stares from those around
> me
> 
> Scott in duluth
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> OldTools is a mailing list catering to the interests of hand tool
> aficionados, both collectors and users, to discuss the history, usage,
> value, location, availability, collectibility, and restoration of
> traditional handtools, especially woodworking tools.
> 
> To change your subscription options:
> http://old
tools.swingleydev.com/mailman/listinfo/oldtools
> 
> To read the FAQ:
> http://swingleydev.com/archi
ve/faq.html
> 
> OldTools archive: http://swingleydev.com/ot/">http://swingleydev.com/ot/
> 
> OldTools@s...
> http://old
tools.swingleydev.com/mailman/listinfo/oldtools
256089 Thomas Conroy 2015‑09‑03 Re: Personal satisfaction
Its paper. White onlays are common on the finest Irish bindings. They used to
believe they were vellum, or possibly white leather (whitleather, alum-tawed
skin), but that apparently came from poor observation plus a feeling that paper
was too commonplace. Some writers still say that some of the white onlays might
be vellum or whittawed; it can be hard to tell, especially when (as in this
case) there is more gold than paper showing. But a recent description of this
binding says "paper" quite clearly.

Tom
 
      From: Ed Minch 
 To: Thomas Conroy  
Cc: "oldtools@s..."  
 Sent: Thursday, September 3, 2015 3:58 AM
 Subject: Re: [OldTools] Personal satisfaction
   
Tom
Beautiful work - what is inlaid in the surface, the lighter colored stuff?


Ed Minch

and this
https://www.cs.tcd.
ie/John.Byrne/libproj/book4.jpg

Recent Bios FAQ