Hi,

Time to delurk and reply to Todd's question, so here's a brief bio.

Long ago and far away, back in the dark ages (which were lots of fun), I
alternated among working as a carpenter and boatbuilder, waging
nonviolent revolution and communing with nature.  In order to delay the
onset of reality, I returned to school at the age of 26, acculumated a
pile of very interesting but mostly useless degrees based on studies
behavior genetics and evolution.  I now work as a psychiatric
epidemiologist (anybody got more syllables in their job title :)?).

During the hiaitus caused by my education and early professional life,
my tools mostly sat accumulating rust -- broken out only occasionally
for minor repairs and building bookshelves (lots of bookshelves!).

In the past couple of years, since a failing back took the joy out of
golf, I've been doing progressively more wood projects -- antique
furniture restorations, kitchen cabinets and 1000 sq' of deck.  In the
process, I've become progressively more interested in learning quality
jointery, traditional methods and protecting my ears and lungs.  In the
process, I'm learning that with sharp hand tools I can do many tasks
quicker and very nearly as accurately as with p*w*r "tools" -- not only
that, but my screwups are less frequent and easier to recover from.

My collection of old tools is limited but growing -- a type 13? #7, a
type 14 #5, misc. marking gauges and an oldish set of Buck Bros. socket
chisels.  More to come!

My SWMBO is another academic and very understanding -- she must think
that she'll get something out of all of this!

Now to Todd's question:

Todd Kissam wrote:
> Is there a way (easy hopefully) to tell american beech vs english
> beech.
> 
> Us early woodies would like to know so when we find an unknown maker
> we know which side of the atlantic to look for him on.
> 
> It can also mean serious $$$. The value of the american plane
> is 2 or 3 times that of an english.
> 
> Why? - I do not know - folks on Jeff's/Richard's side of the big
> pond spend too much on warm beer I guess :^)
> 
> Todd
> 

I just had the pleasure of spending a few days in Williamsburg, with
much of my time spent lurking around the carpenters' yard asking lots of
dumb questions (I know -- no such thing as a dumb question -- just dumb
questioners :)) about 18th century wood technology and tools.  One thing
that I was told was that by the late 18th century, most of the beech
harvested in Virginia was shipped to Britain for use by planemakers.  If
this is true, then identifying the origin of the wood would probably not
be informative with respect to the origin of the plane.  Can anyone
verify this story?

-- 
Frederick A. Marsteller, Ph.D.,         GMHI, Room 402W
1256 Briarcliff Rd., NE,                Atlanta, GA  30306
Phone: (404) 894-4343                   Fax: (404) 894-8502

"The health of nations is more important than the wealth of nations."
-- Will Durant