OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

23515 Wendy & Tim Allen <catamount@t...> 1997‑08‑06 Bio
I've been lurking off and on, even before oldtools, back when there was
discussion of "neanderthal" tools and techniques on rec.ww. Even still, I
prefer a newsgroup format to e-mail for this kind of discussion, especially
given the volume here. I'm glad that the archives have been fixed... A year
or two ago, after responding about something geological, I promised a Bio.
Having now posted another response having to do with rocks (LaMantia's
WTB), here it is.

My dad was trained in Architecture (but went into teaching and engineering
to pay the bills), and has done a lot of woodwork from furniture-making to
carpentry and assorted associated trades and crafts, primarily for his own
purposes, but when he was teaching he worked a couple summers for building
contractors. He was involved with the Historical Society in my hometown,
helping them move several buildings, etc...including reconstructing a
blacksmith shop. He has a huge collection of various tools scattered around
the basement, the house, and the barn, ranging from a whole chest full of
moulding planes to his metal lathe ("the tool to make the tool to make the
tool needed to get the job done"). Tools for woodworking, tools for moving
barns, tools for working on cars, tools for masonry, etc.... And he's still
aquiring more! Growing up, I had the good fortune to be able to use many of
my Dad's tools for one project or another, and he continues to be a great
resource, both for tools and for expertise.

My own training is in Geology, but along the way I've worked as a bicylce
mechanic (and have a whole kit of specialized tools for working on bikes,
some of which my Dad made for me); a ski coach (and have another whole kit
of specialized tools for tuning and waxing skis); a carpenter and laborer
on a vegetable farm (I had many of the basics, but mostly used the farmer's
tools); a research assistant in my graduate advisor's geochemistry lab (got
to use the machine shop to make some apparati -- that was pretty cool
(remember my Dad's metal lathe?)); and as a "Chopper" on a land-clearing
job -- non-neander tools, save for the axe used to pound the felling wedges
into the ch**ns*w's kerf. My brother, who was boss on that job, was using a
Komatsu Excavator to skid the trees, and he had an eager-beaver chipper,
which he dragged around behind a small bulldozer, that swallowed 12"
diameter logs (entire trees, actually) whole. Geologists, BTW, also use an
eclectic set of tools.

I'm now 35, with a hard-to-come-by tenure-track job teaching Geology at
Keene State College in the southwestern corner of my home state of New
Hampshire (not too far from Ashby :-). Now that my wife (Wendy) and I have
a house of our own, I've got some space in the basement where I've set up
shop and started to amass my own collection of tools, many of them given to
me by my Dad.  We have a cat (as you probably figured out from out e-mail
address) and are expecting a tool-user-to-be to join our family in
mid-February. Wendy works in the graphic-design/printing industry, has done
a lot of pottery, and likes to use some of my tools, too!

As for projects, there are always things to do in and around the house. And
we seem to need lots of shelves (from discarded peices of oak floor boards
found in the brush pile behind the house). And I need to make lots of stuff
for the shop, too (of course!). And there was that 6 X 16 woodshed/place to
store our Laser sailboat, made from railroad ties and some 16' long beams
that I milled free-hand with my ch**ns*w out of a white pine that we felled
to make way for the storm drain project (remember my brother with the
excavator?)... We're in the finishing stages of a mudroom and porch
addition to the house. We started last September, but once we got the place
closed in, wire and insulated (in January), it was essentially functional
and so finish has been dragging on seemingly forever. The interior walls
will be covered with northeastern white cedar panelling, sawn from trees
felled on my wife's family ancestral farm in Monson, Maine -- I've still
got to plane and mill a ship-lap into about 400 bd. ft. of the stuff
(*l*ctr*c tools -- but this is a production job, after all). Monson is
famous for slate, for the Kennedy monuments among other things, and we hope
to get some for our mudroom floor. After that, toys, furnishings, and tools
for the expected tool-user-to-be will likely be a source of projects for,
well, for the rest of my life.

Just to make things perfectly clear, although I have used the word
"collection" a couple times above, neither my Dad nor I are "collectors."
Tools are intended to help solve problems, and you need to have the right
tool for the job. You just never know what problem is going to present
itself next. Best to be prepared ;-)

Tim

-- Wendy & Tim Allen  catamount@t...  --
--      http://top.monad.net/~catamount/         --

PS. The salesman at the local "WoodWreckers Whorehouse" had to show me the
new Hartz hammers -- The "Tim Allen" Signature Model with the "RRR" cast
into the head.

"RRR! More Power!"



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