OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

47657 "Wright, Jim - DCSPIM" <wrightj@f...> 1998‑08‑07 BIO: Jim Wright
Well, I've been reading OT for about a month now, I guess so I'm
probably quite late in posting my bio.

I got interested in woodworking in the Fall of 1995 when I took on the
 project of building a drafting table for my youngest daughter
 (who is now a senior in Interior Design at the University of Georgia.
The other daughter has her own graphic design business.
Wife of 32 years is a computer programmer.)
I found my use of a circular saw lacking in precision and spent
some time with someone in my office using his Sh*psm#th.
Not trusting my abilities to do things by hand, I bought a bunch
of tailed tools and jigs over the next two years.  I also got out
my Dad's old tools which I had not learned to use properly.
He was a mechanic and did carpentry which he learned from
his father who did carpentry and farmed.  My dad died when I was 17.

Anyway, I got started in old tools by asking about in antique stores.
I picked up a #7 and spent a lot of time getting the rust off and making
it work.  In hindsight, I probably did it wrong.  Then I started asking
relatives
and friends if they had old tools that they no longer wanted and got a
few
more that way.  I'm also asking people I don't know well and offering to
research what they have to determine the true value.  I refuse to
conceal
the value of something in one of these relationships - I'll tell them
what it
could be worth, how to verify it and what they might do to get its full
value.
So far, a lot of people have said it's too much trouble to realize the
full
potential value and we have been able to agree on a price - once for a
large
lot of stuff.  But, I digress.

I am a Civil Engineer (GA Tech '68).  I worked my first fifteen years
for the
Seventh Coast Guard District out of Miami (anybody have any questions
about lighthouses or facility engineering in a tropical salt-laden
environment?)
I designed and built our first house in Miami in '72-73 (open beam rough
sawn
western red cedar with glass all around under the eaves and on the
gables and
it withstood Andrew while over 100 pine trees in the yard were snapped
off at
the 12 foot level - I'm proud of that.  I did not live in Miami at the
time of Andrew.
By that time I had moved to Atlanta to work in my present job with the
Army's
Forces Command.  My jobs include being the resident computer expert for
our
engineering group, managing a fleet of about 126 fire safety vehicles,
overseeing
bridge and dam inspections and special road projects and advising on
supply issues.

I am a member of the Woodworking Guild of Georgia (a great group of over
300 people)
and am working on our Spring Symposium (17 & 18 April 1999, Georgia
Hardwoods in
Buford, GA, Eddie Hamrick building a reproduction of the Thomas
Jefferson Lap Desk,
and Bob Flexner on repairing furniture, cost is undecided but won't be
high, non-members
invited, more details later.)

Right now, I seem to be dragging home more than I can manage and am
desperately trying to create some order out of the basement.  That
hasn't
stopped me from asking people if they happen to have any interesting
wood
lying about that they'd like removed.  I bought an old tailed lathe
recently
and borrowed enough of the missing pieces to make some mallets from
found wood.  As soon as I get the bench together (from my neighbor's
donated sections of bowling alley) I promise I'll build something that
would
not look right unless it had flat surfaces, right angles and parallel
planes.



Recent Bios FAQ