I've been a quiet porch dweller since posting my original bio way
back in January 1999. Wow! Nearly ten years! In that time I've
accumulated user tools of all sorts, satisfied my "thing" for
combination planes, built a small pile of Auburn Tool woodies, and
even finished a project or two. Not really much to tell until just
about a year ago when I found myself staring at a line ad in the back
of FWW. "Loommaker retiring - apprentice wanted" is what it read and
it triggered something in the back of my mind. You see, my Mom had
passed away a couple of months earlier and like so many who suffer
such a loss I was wondering what life's all about and how best to
spend whatever time I have. I had a good job in corporate IT but the
lure of working in the shop all day making an amazing (mostly) wooden
machine that artists then use to facilitate their creativity was too
enticing to resist. After much investigation and discussion my wife,
sons, and I decided to purchase the business. I traveled from
Pennsylvania to Washington's Olympic Peninsula to spend some time
with the retiring owner learning the nuances of building a complex
wooden machine. Then I packed "the company" into a 26-foot U-Haul
truck, hitched up the company trailer, and drove it all back cross-
country. Since then we've been building looms, benches, and
accessories and shipping them all over the world. I'd like to be
able to tell you that this is not an electron consuming endeavor but
that's just not true. Sure, there's plenty of handwork involved and
I find myself turning to my hand tools and old tools for lots of
steps but there just isn't time in a commercial operation to do
everything by hand (i.e. jointing and planing). We'd love to build
at least one loom entirely by hand someday...perhaps if Colonial
Williamsburg commissions one? At least the craft and art of weaving,
in the hand loom segment we serve, is a very Galootish thing. Many
of our customers (our "Aloomni"!) raise their own sheep and shear
them, prep the fleece, spin the yarn, and dye it using old-time
methods and tools. And while we do have a few concessions to modern
technology in our looms or available as options they are still at the
core hand and foot powered machines. So there's my update...I
abandoned corporate IT to build wooden looms. And I couldn't be
happier!
Larry
p.s. If you'd like to see examples of what we build feel free to
visit our website: www.firesidelooms.com
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