Hello Fellow Galoots:

I wanted to chime in an say a bit about the third edition of
the father of galoot get togethers. That would of course be
Galootapalooza. It's no Crane's but I think that its a whole lot
safer. :)

First, hats off to Mike Lindgren, our host, who did a spectacular job
of providing food, drink, lodging and a place to make shavings to the
assembled masses. Mike has set the bar very high for next year's host
to say the least.

Saturday's tool hunting at the Kane county flea market (~1000
sellers) was in my opinion a bust as I left with no tools to show for
the effort of fighting past hoards of beannie baby shoppers and
sellers. On the other hand there were a couple of good finds pulled
out of the market, one of them by an out of state galoot. He knows who
he is and should gloat as required. None the less, it was a fun time
as we walked about in roving packs of wild eyed tool hunters seeking
booty. This is the first time that I recall being skunked at Kane
county in the 3 years that I have been looking for tools there. It has
to be the influx of all those %^&*() beannie babies. One of the
highlights of the day for me was one "dealer" who's siren call went
something like "It's all junk and it's all cheap", he was correct on
one account, it was all junk. Another good one was the guy who's
marketing ploy was to call out, "everythings half price", turns out
his stuff has been half price all summer. ;)

After the flea market we headed back to the Lindgren homestead for
some beverages,show and tell, food, and tool using. At show and tell,
we saw lots of cool stuff: Wes' patterns (wow), I showed off my fine
Yankee #106 radio set and my Marples X-4 plane, and Ralph showed off
his latest marking gauge desire (Star brand patented gauges>, which
have a really ingenious locking method for the fence, what a great
time. All the while that this was going on Mike was slaving away to
prepare an awesome BBQ. The food seemed limitless: chips, salsa,
salads, home made bread, BBQ chicken, corn on the cob, pork
tenderloin... yum, yum. I nearly burst, I ate so much ! Oh yea, don't
forget the desert, home made lemon meringue pies... my favorite. Talk
about a little slice of heaven.

Following dinner was the now famous plane off. This was amazing,
galoots pulling tools out of every place in an effort to see which
tool was the best for attacking various pieces of "wood" (Taran curly
maple, Lacewood, Rosewood, Purplehart, Figured walnut..). As Ralph
points out on his web page, the winner was Mike Lindgren's St James
Bay Infill, taking a 15 thousandths thick shaving. I suspect this
should be no surprise as it is to a mass produced plane as a racing
car is to a production auto. Lots of attention lavished on the
details. For those of you who have asked in the past, my Marples X-4
plane showed well. It was in the 30 thousandths range on shaving
thickness. For those of you you care, this plane is a cross between a
Bailey pattern body, a wooden infill and an adjustable block plane
mouth. It is a sight. I think that with some more tuning, it can be
improved to be more than competitive with a production infill plane.

As usual, for a Galootapalooza,  there was lots of sharing, teaching
and learning going on. In particular Ralph showed us all how really
simple it is to prepare and use a hand scraper. This is something that
all of us, users, need to learn how to do ! There is no real trick to
it. I now know what I have been missing all these years. Russ Allen
explain how core boxes work in pattern making and then showed us how a
core box plane is used. That was quite educational.

The final event of Galootapalooza is the Garfield Farm MWTCA/EAIA tool
meet. As usual there were a large number of dealers and buyers. I
scored some tools as did most of the other galoots. In fact at one
point Steve Kordik, Gil Chesboro and myself were comparing the #18
Stanley block planes that we each had bought. Wierd huh ?

So, over all it was a great time. There were 13 galoots in
attendance, along with 3 SWMBOS and 2 SWMBetts, new records in each
category.  We also added two new Illinois galoots to the fraternity,
welcome boys, don't be strangers. This was a great turnout by any
measure. Heck, Galootapalooza is THE BEST 24 hours in oldtool
collecting/using if you ask me. Of course, I am biased. See you all
next year.