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