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91956 "Larry Laminger" <lglaminger@h... 2001‑04‑14 Bio - (or) One Man's Fall Down the Slippery Slope
I'm 45 years old live in a small town just west of Indianapolis.  My
woodworking
story begins around the age of 11.  We lived in St. Louis then.  Dad always
had
some kind of project going on in his basement woodshop.  He would get
totally
absorbed in his projects, but always welcomed my "help".   He had an amazing
collection of tools, many were old even back then.  Many of the finer tools
were
off-limits to me at first (a lesson he learned from my older brother no
doubt).  At
some point, I began working on my own projects while he worked up his.  I
would
trace some object like a knife or hatchet onto a scrap of wood, cut it out
with a
coping saw and then finish carving it to shape.  He was pretty proud of
those
things I made and was always showing them off.  It was great working along
with
Dad in the shop.

My folks bought some land on a small lake about 50 miles up river from St.
Louis.   There, we built our new home.  Building that house with my dad was
an
experience that cannot be described.  We did everything ourselves.  We moved
into the house when it was close to being finished.  Then one night when I
was
16,  my Dad passed away suddenly in his sleep.  I made it my mission to
finish
the home that was his dream.

It was 2 months to the day after I put the finishing touches on the house
that the
un-imaginable happened.  A flood on the Mississippi River broke through 3
levees and put our home under 14' of water.  The house was under water for
about a month (but it stayed together!).  Very little could be saved.  What
the
river's current didn't carry away, was damaged beyond repair by the muddy
waters.  And then there were the snakes!  It was decided to just burn and
bury the
house.  Mom was quite the warrior.  She lost a husband and home within the
course of one year....but kept on going strong.

So anyway, that's how I gained and lost my first shop full of tools.

In high school, I took a lot of industrial arts classes.  While there, I
built some
laminating forms to build an assortment of long-bows with exotic wood
risers.  I
also made a cross bow or two, hand crafting the trigger mechanisms in the
metal
shop.  My bows took some pretty high awards at the state level, but then I
got too
stupid and "over-partied" the remainder of my youth.

On to college for awhile, but the party bug bit me too bad to make anything
out of
it.  At some point, it occurred to me that I couldn't go through life "numb"
so I left
school and joined the Navy.  I got married and brought two great kids into
the
world.  The Navy helped me continue my education and I worked primarily in
the
substance abuse field as a counselor.  During my 13 year enlistment, I
managed
to gather a few tools and practice a little woodworking.  I got involved
with making
reproduction furniture, in scaled miniature, for dollhouses.  My "shop" at
the time
could fit in a briefcase.  The experience drew out the old blood in me and I
vowed
to one day make some of these pieces full scale  ...some day.

My ailing mother in law lived in southern Indiana in house that was falling
in
around her.  I left the Navy, and spent the next few months doing a total
rebuild on
her home.  This not only rekindled my woodworking flame, but also gave me a
great excuse to build up a pretty nice shop full of tools. My new career as
the
general manager of a restaurant left me with too little time to enjoy the
shop.  Not
real happy with the whole situation, we decided to move to Indianapolis.  I
came
here about a month before moving the family up.  While waiting for my new
position to open up at the Department of Corrections Juvenile Facility, I
did  finish
carpentry work for some local builders.   To help finance the move, my (now
ex)
wife held a garage sale in my absence.  You guessed it.  Every tool that I
had
acquired over the years was sold off at a fraction of their worth.  But I
allowed her
to live and moved her and the kids to Indianapolis anyway.

So that's what happened to my second shop full of tools.

It's not easy to maintain sanity when your day job consists of working with
abused
and addicted teenaged children.  I picked up a new hobby, screenprinting, as
an
escape from reality.  The Hobby turned into a small business that turned out
to be
pretty successful.  That's about the time my wife of 18 years announced to
me
and the kids that she was leaving us for some "guy" she had met.  Best thing
that
ever happened to us!

I had to close up the screenprinting shop and sell off my contracts and
equipment
to cover the gapping hole she left in my finances.

My kids were great through all of this and they really kept me going.  A
little over a
year later, I met Carol.  What a lady!  It only took us a few months to
decide we
were perfect for each other.  We got married 3 years ago and things just
keep
getting better.  She is the only person I know that enjoys fishing more than
me.
We moved into our new 100 year old home right after the honeymoon.  We've
been remodeling it ever since. Carol  encouraged me to get a different
job....she
saw that I was burning out from working with the kids.  I now work for a
major
garage door company in Indianapolis and get to play with tools all day long.
Life
is good!

Now for the sliding part.

A little over a year ago, we were at a garage sale.  There was an old
cardboard
box with some rusted tools in it.  I gave $15 for the box and put it with
all the other
junk we bought that day.  There it sat until this past January.  From
lurking in such
places as here and that Norm inspired newsgroup, I ran across the Restoring
Old Tools site.  That reminded me of that old box of tools, so I dug it out.
Here's
what I found:

-- Stanley #42 saw set, in original box with instructions.
-- Stanley #75 Bull Nose Rabbit Plane
-- Stanley #203 Block Plane
-- Stanley #4 Smooth Plane
-- Stanley #5 1/4 Jack Plane

They were covered with rust and some brown, nasty, gummy film.  I carefully
disassembled everything, cleaned and tuned them up, and found myself in
total
amazement of how sweet these tools are.  After the first curlies fell from
that #4, I
announced that it was time to make an old dream come true.  That Chippendale
lowboy reproduction I made in miniature is going to be done full
scale....ala'
Neanderthal!

That's a goal.  I'm not ready for that yet.  First, I have to brush up on
old skills and
learn new ones.  So digging into the old scrap barrel, I start
practicing/learning
some hand techniques.  First it's dovetails.  My "bench" for this lesson was
a
sturdy old sawhorse and a couple of bar clamps.  Next it's cabriole legs.
After
a period of trying with mixed results, I decided that a workbench proper was
needed.  Thanks to  Bob Key at http://www.terraclavis.com/bws/beginners.htm
,
my first real bench has come into being.  This was the first project I've
completed
entirely by hand since that old wooden knife I built in my Dad's shop.  One
thing I
discovered was the "need" for jointer plane.  The #5 1/4 did an OK job but
something a little bigger would be handy to have.  Hey...I've got a bench,
I'll build a
woody!  I cannot describe how cool it was when the first onion skin thick
curly
rolled out of the plane that I built onto the bench that I built.  Oh, and
since the
bench is done, beautiful dovetails seem to cut themselves!  That's it, time
for a
complete re-design of the gar..er...shop.

I've always felt my Dad watching me as I work with wood.  He never was one
that
would go for some "electrical gadget" when an old standard tool would do.
I'm
sure he's pleased with my newfound love of old tools.

My years of professional training and experience with compulsive addictive
behavior is no match for the power this Galoot obsession has over me. You
all
should be ashamed of yourselves for corrupting the likes of me :)

Larry L.











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