OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

1790 fisher@u... (Ed Fisher, Oracle Rdb7) 1996‑07‑02 Bio -- Ed Fisher
It's about time I introduce myself...

I've always had a certain lack of coordination, you know the ability to
do things "just so" with my hands. My wife pointed out that my use of
mechanics hand tools (on bicycles) is ever so precise, but with wood,
I'm a klutz. I eventually realized why my wrnech work has a certain
precision, it has something to do with the, ahh, ordnance, that I was
once trained to assemble.

So, I've admitted that I'm a klutz. It'll probably take me twenty or
thirty years to apprentice with hand tools. Given that I'm currently at
the half century mark, that's quite a while.

For practicing, I picked up a pallet of 'cuts' from a lumber yard and
figured I could turn it into shavings and saw dust before destroying
more desirable timber. I went to get a few pieces Sunday and discovered
that the carpenters had colonized it. I guess I know have the raw
materials for making some antiques. That's it, maybe my shop mascot
should be a Carpenter Ant?

So after having a fight over territory with those ants, I grabbed a
piece and decided to cut some dovetails. I figured I'd make a "box"
12"x9" because that just happened to match the useful areas of the board
and it didn't have to actually fit anywhere. After some fits and starts,
the "box" was down to 9"x7" before I started over. They ain't pretty and
any real apprentice would probably have to sleep on the floor till he
got them right.

Well, I'm working on it.

After that, plane technique... No, gotta learn to sharpen things just
so, first.

One of my bylines for fixing bicycles is "The most expensive thing you
can own is cheap tools." Now that doesn't mean I should run out and
spend $$$ like a drunken sailor, but it does advise caution.
Unfortunately I live a stone's throw from Ashby.

So what else do I do? Well my bicycling was limited to things like 24
hour races (332 miles, once). I'm also a homebrewer, preferring stouts
which seems to also be a Galoot choice.

In the future, I'll be curbing my normite tendencies, though I will have
to crank out something once in a while so that SWMBO doesn't wonder
where the money's going. but I'll be working on my manual technique.

Oh, also, built front and back porches last year...

ed


Recent Bios FAQ