OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

62830 JPagona@a... 1999‑05‑16 My Bio (Long, and probably boring)
Hey all,
I guess it's time to introduce myself.  My name is David Sobel.  I did
commercial trim carpentry for about 12 years.  I also spent some time as a
construction superintendant.  (Those who can, do.  Those who can't, teach.
Those who can't teach, supervise.)  This gave me a good start towards a
woodworking hobby, but rarely enough time to do very much.  I now work for an
architectural firm, and I now have a more normal schedule, and free time for
a hobby.

As a trim carpenter, I was no galoot, but I did enjoy working with my hand
tools.  My dormant neander genes started to wake up some years ago, when I
read an article in FWW about wood moulding planes.  A few years after that, I
walked into an antique shop with Wife, and the guy had 17 moulding planes,
all part of  a matched set. He offered to sell me all 17 for $300.00.  Since
Wife was going to school, and I was a shortsighted dolt, I only bought 1.
(DOH!)  What I bought was an ogee plane, and it's turned out to be one of my
favorites.  Since then, I've gotten 8 more wood planes, including one that
makes tongues, 2 that make grooves and a couple of beading planes.

About 6 months ago, the neanderthal in me really came awake.  I put an old
solid core door on some sawhorses in my one car garage and went to work.
Wife asked for a rack to dye fabric on, and that was my first project.  She
just wanted a square frame with cork glued on top.  I pulled out some 1x2
walnut I've been hording for 6 years and went to work.  I made the frame with
hand cut dovetails.  It only took me 6 hours to make 4 joints with a single
tail at each joint.  I glued it together and realized a needed a marking
guage to mark out a rabbet for the cork.  That became project #1.5.  I then
chiseled in the rabbet by hand and used a wood plane to make a bead on the
top corner.  Then I coated it with polyurinestain.  (Live and learn).

Since then, I've been hanging around rec.woodworking.  I've bought a table
saw and some more neander tools.  I've made some tables and boxes with
virtually all of the jointery done by hand.  I've also met some good people,
like Paul Rad.  My workshop is coming together, but it's still kind of
schizophrenic.  There's still a lot of tools I need, (or at least I almost
have Wife convinced that I "need" them), but I'm having fun finding ways to
make what I want with the tools that I have.

BTW, for those of you who know me from the rec.woodworking, Jay Pagona is my
pet lizard (Bearded Dragon).

David Sobel



Recent Bios FAQ