Esteemed Galoots:

I have been lurking for a couple of years after starting a bit of a
ruckus when I asked about the age and import of an "H. Diston" (no son
or sons) backsaw.  I further caused a stir by asking, in ignorance I
promise!, about the wisdom of cutting down the aforementioned saw to get
myself a dovetail saw.  Since then I have quietly listened until
recently when I wrote to a member who also lives in Arizona.  He
welcomed me into the fold and even introduced me to the clan of the
AATCA!  Hopefully I will be able to increase my knowledge and well as my
ownership of useful hardware.

As a man at the beginning of the second half of this game called life, I
have enjoyed raising 4 girls to the stage of marriage for the first and
high school for the other 3 while growing to appreciate the SWMBO the
Lord gave me over 21 years ago.  This "game" is a wonderful experience
but I'm sure glad I was invited to the post game celebration!

As to my career, I've been called to provide leadership to various
flocks of 2-legged sheep.  This I have done for the last 22 years.  For
the past 7 years I've been a pastor in the center of Arizona, in a
beautiful place at 3500' elevation and 90 miles from the hot desert of
Phoenix and only 50 from the snow and pine trees of Flagstaff.  My
career has not always been able to provide sufficient $ for our family
but I was blessed with a father who was a craftsman with confidence!  He
instilled in me the confidence to try almost any type of construction or
craftsmanship I had the mind to.  Hence, I have, throughout my adult
life, worked with wood in construction and the related trades.  Only
recently have I been interested in the use of old tools.  While still a
Normite by practice, I'm becoming more and more a Galoot at heart.  I do
own and have used 3 different planes; (after *l*ctro zapping them and
SS'ing them) and I bought a hand saw to use on my new house.  (won't buy
new again!) Please don't laugh at my pitiful assortment of tools, I'm
hunting.  I've even started to like antique shops and estate sales!

The last year has seen me building my first house--drawn, dug, framed
and finished with my own hands.  I did hire a mechanical contractor and
some strange folks who choose to work with that pink stuff that makes me
itch, but otherwise, all the fruit of my hands.  Projects left to finish
are the kitchen cabinets which I hope to have the time to enjoy and the
wood floor that will be laid out of salvaged Ponderosa pine paneling
that I will mill to 5" T&G.  I plan to face screw it and plug the holes
with mahogany plugs.

May I sit by the porch to learn a while longer and presume upon your
heritage to call myself a Galoot wannabe?

Graham wrote:
> .....When I arrived in America (for post grad work in New York) and
> got the chance to build a house in the Catskills it was all over with
> academe. I never went back to England but instead built houses and
> eventually started my own custom furniture shop.

Was it the opportunity to make a living, or the large amount of undeveloped
land that still existed in areas like the Catskills?

> Times change and much tradesman's lore has become as arcane as ancient
> Egyptian embalming techniques. Now we need to discuss and analyze
> every detail on order to reinvent the past......

That's because we don't know any better.  Most of us are self taught, often
from books like yours.  And we make our living with the technology of the
modern world.  But at least we're having fun doing it (most of the time).

> .....My most treasured possession is an old carriagemaker's t-rabbet plane
> by Moon in St. Martin's Lane, the same street Chippendale in which
> Chippendale worked (I found it in San Diego!).

San Diego!  My first plow plane was a wedge arm by Moon that is stamped
145 St. Martins Lane.   It a found with a few other things, in the basement
of my parents late neighbor in Staten Island.  He passed on two years ago
at 80+ but had made a living as a gardener, but apparently his grandfather
and/or great grandfather had been carpenters in NYC.  Although some
stuff was mid-century American, like Josiah King.  The rest was earlier
English, like chisels and gouges from Wm.Butcher and from Wm.Greaves.
Most stuff had long ago been pillaged, and much had been well used up
past usefulness.  Still, I've put some back into service, and that is good.

My guess is that unlike the earlier import tools, like my John Rogers plane,
sold to the early colonies.   Many of these tools came over with the men who
used them.  Since by the early 1800s, America had already established some
good makers, with many more starting up every day.

Welcome onboard.

Walter