Gentle Ones,
Some of you old-timers might remember this technique. I've posted it once
or twice over the years...

This is how gramps did it in his shop in Lancaster, PA (wish
he'd stayed in furniture-making, instead of getting in the
bowling pin manufacturing business). My maternal great-grandfather
(we called him Grandaddy-Bob) was one of these rich fellows, who
could afford to have his shop in the house. Matter of fact,
his shop was upstairs, just above the back stairs. He was
rather Normish (as much as you could be, back in the 20's),
but still had a traditional hand tool set-up too. I dunno
what poor bastuhds he got to carry his p-tools up the stairs,
but there they were (so mom says).
 
His first-born was my grandfather (we called him Daddy-Bob),
and like any first son, his pops had visions of him playing
for the Pirates (not the Athletics; no self-respecting
ballplayer would aspire to play in the Junior Circuit).
He played a little semi-pro, but that was all.
It wasn't too long before Daddy-Bob joined his dad in
the shop, and not too much longer after, that Daddy-Bob
was helping in the family business.
 
Aside from working at his old man's business, ole Bob (in
his mid-twenties) made custom bunk beds on the side. It
came naturally, as he was the eldest of 11 children, and
after about the sixth kid he was conscripted to make bunks
for the rest of the young'ns. He got pretty good at it, and
like many folks who don't know any better, got talked into
doing commissioned work from friends, neighbors, and family.
 
Turns out, all that these rather conservative folks wanted was
those damn bunk beds; no Windsor chairs, no highboys, no
patternmaker's chests, just those damn bunks. You know, come
to think of it, whenever he was trying to get me and my
little brother to go to bed, he'd yell, "Get in the damn
bunk!" He called it a damn bunk, even if he wasn't mad.
Ours wasn't a Daddy-Bob original, unfortunately. The piece of
crap, me and my lil bro shared, must have been a Monkey Wards
special, because it came apart in sections during the Sylmar
earthquake in 1971. Well, at least it saved us having to
get out the bed. All we had to do was get up off the floor,
go to the doorway, and watch the palm trees sway from the
shockwaves, but I digress.
 
Anyway, my momma told me that he got really good at knocking out these
damn bunks: maple bunks, oak bunks, sycamore bunks, cherry bunks. It was
freaking bunks a-go-go. These damn bunks had mortice and tenon joints,
with dovetailed aprons on the bottom bunk. Remembe r, This was in the days
before CNC routahs, bisquick joiners, ROS's, RAS's, CMS's, and a dozen
other offenses to God; Daddy-Bob was turning out two bunks a week in his
spare time. Dunno what kind of finish he put on 'em, but I do know that he
tried to patent his knock-apart joinery technique. He also used an unusual
repair technique to salvage split boards; some sort of variant of a
Dutchman patch. Anyway, to hear my mom describe his joinery cleverness, it
sounded like a modified tusk tenon arrangement. He didn't get *that*
patent, but later *did* get one for the seminar-style name badges (the
wiggly part of the pin, that stabilizes a safety-pin against a name tag)
patent, and made an outrageous fortune (later lost in real estate - easy
come, easy go, I guess) from those stupid pins. He had 'em by the
garage-full.
 
Being a good businessman (think greed and blind avarice in the pupal
stage), Daddy-Bob didn't let anyone help him in the shop. My guess is he
didn't want to share profits. Still, he'd "recruit" the younger kids to do
"family" chores around the shop. Wasn't too long before the kids were old
enough to stay away when it was chore time, or demand some kind of
payment. In the interest of profits, and quality control, Daddy-Bob
elected to go it alone, preferring to work at night. This nocturnal
woodworking lead him to the way of Neanderthal woodworking, and is
probably when he started cutting those dovetailed aprons by hand;
therefore the problem of how to cut joinery on the end of a long board.
 
The old Budinger (mom's maiden name) noggin must have been working
overtime one day, as Bob got the bright idea of cutting a hole
in the floor below the vise of his workbench. You guessed it,
Bob just fed the long boards through the hole, clamped 'em up,
and sawed away in a standing position, like a real man. He fashioned
a little trap door, and even made a re-positionable dust chute,
so that instead of having to bend down to pick up shavings, he
just switched a little lever (used twine, after the lever broke),
and swept shavings and dust down the hole.
 

I get my height (6'6") from my momma's side of the family. Daddy-Bob
was about 6'3", before being stooped by arthritis. My mom's brothers
were both close to 6'4", and so I'm sure that Daddy-Bob's sibs were
headed in an upward direction, growth-wise. 
It wasn't too long until Bob's little
brothers became Bob's almost-as-tall-as-Bob little brothers. One
evening, when Bob was hard at work on one of his damn bunks (doing
his best to honor the capitalist notion that if you work hard,
ignore your family, and gouge the customer, that you'll get ahead),
not-so-lttle brother Jake came home from a night on the town with
his hard-drinking buddies from Penn State. 

Anyone still awake? Remember where I said those stairs were?

Well, Jake (Jacob) wasn't paying too close attention, as he stumbled in
through the back door, bounded up the stairs, and clocked his head, but
good, right smack on a nice stiff piece of quarter-sawn white oak (A soon
to be Stickley-esque damn bunk). Jake wasn't hurt too bad, but he was mad.
He'd been Bob's "apprentice" more than a few times, and was sick of Bob
making all the extra money. He now had a mean bump to go with his oncoming
hangover, so he aimed to get even.
 
Bob came back to his bench, unaware that Jake had just deposited enough
scalp on the other end of the board to rival what had been taken at Little
Big Horn (the dovetails had already been cut on that end), finished
cutting the remaining end, loosened the vise, and attempted to retrieve
his board. Jake had other ideas. He jerked the board out of Bob's hands.
Bob was so shocked, that he literally dove after the piece, thoroughly
wedging himself in the hole. The cussing and screaming woke up the whole
household. The downstairs kids came to see about the commotion, and saw
Bob hanging there. He screamed at them to help him, so they started
gingerly pulling him out. In the meantime, the upstairs kids came running
into the shop, saw Daddy-Bob's legs, and heard his voice yelling, "Pull!
Pull! Pulllll!". They immediately jumped in, and began pulling with all
their might. Imagine Daddy-Bob's shock and dismay, as Jake stood by, his
head gushing blood, with an evil grin on his face, while nine other busy
Budingers set about stretching Daddy-Bob to the length of his future
grandson.

The tug-of-war continued, until Daddy-Bob's yowling, "Stop!" finally got
the first-floor contingent to cease and desist. The second-floor brigade
also heard the command, and stopped pulling his leg... as I'll stop
pulling on yours now.

O'Neener - running and ducking
Great shellackings administered daily.....
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