Welcome to the "Slippery Slope"! And lets see that plane!

Sent from the seat of my pants

> On Jan 13, 2015, at 9:52 PM, Matt Hanley  wrote:
> 
> Hello, all - Nice porch you have here.
> 
> I found you while researching an obscure bench plane I inherited recently.
> At some point I'll ask about it, but I didn't want to just barge in and
> start blurting out ignorant questions.
> 
> My name is Matt Hanley and I live in Lansing, MI.  After almost 20 years in
> and around government/politics for a living, I've cooled my jets a bit the
> last three years or so and enjoyed other aspects of life.  One of these is
> a rediscovered interest in woodworking, which had its genesis in a one
> semester woodshop class I took in 9th grade more than 30 years ago.  While
> I'm relatively handy and usually brave enough to try something after
> educating myself on how to do it, I hadn't done any woodworking at all
> since 9th grade until a couple years ago.  We were redoing our living room
> and needed a proper mantle for the fireplace. After getting a couple of
> quotes I realized I could build it myself for the same money and have a
> couple new power tools on the shelf as a result.  (After all, every home
> improvement project is an excuse to buy at least one new tool.)
> 
> As a result of the reading/research necessary to prepare myself for that
> project, I had gotten the woodworking bug.  With no specific plans in place
> to use them, I started looking for second-hand tools; hand planes became an
> early interest.  I went to a local craigslist seller's place to buy a
> Stanley 78 and he tried to get me interested in the Parks planer he was
> trying to sell.  I didn't need a planer.  I didn't even have a jointer.
> But I couldn't get the machine out of my head..  Three months later, I
> owned it.  This lead to other machines - all older than me - which led to
> traditional layout tools and clamps and machinist's tools and chisels and,
> oh my.
> 
> For me, the fun of setting up a shop has been the hunt.  I've been able to
> acquire a very nice set of user tools for very short money, relatively
> speaking.  Part of the allure is the quality.  Part of it is the
> restoration of something that is still perfectly capable of doing the job
> it was designed to do, rather than simply throwing it away and buying a new
> one.  And part of it is the connection with the people who used to use
> these things to make their living; each one of these objects I touch has a
> history, and I think it's cool to be a small part of it.
> 
> There are times when I have to remind myself that I got into this escapade
> so I could make things out of wood, not to simply own tools.  But around
> here at least, there's an awfully faint line between being a woodworker and
> a de facto tool collector.  I traipse across it routinely.  On those
> occasions where I catch myself, I make amends by sharpening something or
> removing some rust from one of my "project" tools (which is still most of
> them).
> 
> I'm not sure where this interest will take me, but I'm sure having a heck
> of a lot of fun so far.  I expect I'll be a user of both hand tools and
> power tools, because I buy the notion that they each have their strengths.
> I'll never be an expert on any of this stuff, but there's enough to learn
> about this craft and its tools that every day is a chance to gain just a
> little more knowledge, a little more appreciation for the history, and a
> little more understanding about why it still appeals to so many.  And I'm
> an eager student.  To the extent that I learn along the way, I look forward
> to the opportunities to share some of that with others.
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