A local sharpening service makes a run once a week through the area and I drop my blades off at a small local cabinet shop for pickup. Stopped by there today to pickup some that I left there last week. It's called a cabinet shop but they'll make just about anything, too much competition in cabinets these days the owner once said. The shop is owned by an old timer with nothing but the old iron everywhere. The shop and equipment is always spotless. Today he was setting up a Oliver 4 head molder. I've never been around any of this old heavy stuff so it was quite impressive to see it working. More so though was seeing him set it up to get it to produce a cove like a sample he had. Run a few feet, check it with a dial caliper, run some more etc. Obviously he's done this probably hundreds if not thousands of times gauging how long it took him to go to what adjustment to tweak. The skill these old timers have is just amazing. One of the employees mentioned how all the new machines built today were computer controlled and a breeze to setup. Well, that won't be happening at Jack's.
-- John, in Minnesota