Almost As Nice As Tommy Mac's Shop...

About 60 years ago when I was young my Father and Grandfather were in a friendly discussion as to who was the best welder. To a boy of 13, it was obvious who was the best welder, my Grandfather did not even have electricity in his shop let alone a welder.

Over the years I realized that welding is a technique, not what is done with a tool. As a blacksmith, my Grandfather did weld and was very good at it. He not only kept the horses shod, but also, all of the farm equipment in the area and the equipment owned by the township.

While Dad was not a blacksmith, as his father, he to was very good with the welding technique that he had. There were many semi trailers on the road that came out of the jigs that he designed and welded together. The company he worked for was Fruehauf trailer, and during that period of time they had a lot of their trailers on the road. People today probably never heard of the Company

I admire the skill shown in the video and the product he produced. Never in 100 years would I be able to do it. Every chance I get I go into blacksmith shops and watch them work. A blacksmith was a true craftsman, taking raw materials and make what every he or his customer needed.

Remember? I bought a couple of their trailers for the company I worked for in the 70's. They were one of the best years ago. I just looked them up and they had a sad ending.

My Dad had job interviews with them after he left the Navy. He had been the Navy liaison on the LARC, which as I understand it was a big deal for Fruehauf and after he left they wanted to hire him. Trouble is that he wanted to boss a crew, not sit in an office raking in the big bucks, so they never came to an accord.

Yep. In my younger days I would have liked to have learned a bit of that art, but opportunity never arose and now I fear my days of swinging hammers are approaching an end.

That's a nice story, but did you miss the fact that I suggested starting the video at 20:00? I was posting about the wood working shop and tools towards the end of the video, not the metal work at the start.

OK, calm down. Your thread was already off the very first post after you st arted it. It never stood a chance...

OTOH, I really got a kick out of that guy. It looked like he was working i n his living room, and looking at his lathe work, that guy has some real sk ills. I like the video because watching him build that table should be a r eminder to all not to concentrate on the tools themselves as a limit to the quality of your end product, but to concentrate on using the tools you hav e to their limits.

One of the most influential guys in my history was the first guy that that was teaching me woodworking/carpentry. He was a master and had NO toleranc e for excuses. I would have to build a one off cabinet, a store fixture, s ome kind of built ins, etc., and if I was stumped by thinking I needed a ce rtain tool, he would yell at me and tell me that I needed to learn how to u se the tools I had because wherever I worked I wasn't going to have a shop full of tools on the job site. A lesson I never forgot.

But that guy... he knew that going in! Thanks for posting that.

Robert

I recall, about 35 years ago, using a rotary planer head attached to my RAS to surface plane a butcher block surface with end grain as the surface. Scary and I could possibly have done better with a chain saw. But it got me there and after hours of follow up with a belt sander the surface was smooth.