How did you come to be in woodworking?

[mel]

Maybe this is the beginning of a thread of interest maybe not.... I've been reading this ng for awhile now and see quite a few regulars, a few participants that post only once and awhile, the occasional lurker who's name I haven't recalled seeing before....What's your story? How did you get started in woodworking?

I'll keep mine short. My grandfather was a carpenter out of necessity, had to find some sort of work to support his family. Passed it on to my father who also worked with his hands out of necessity in order to put himself through college. I grew up learning from him. When I was young he was the manager of a local millwork operation and he drug me to work with him in the summers while I was out of school. I learned to use the tools in the shop at an early age. Learning how to work with my hands backfired on me since I dropped out of college to get married...I just knew I could make a living without a formal education. We divorced 6 months later and I never made it back to college.

Fast forward 14 years....I remarried a woman with 2 young daughters. I've put a shop together mostly because I wanted to build them things they would cherish and use...like my father did for my sister and me. That's where I am today...I build things for the builders I sell lumber to so I can justify the expense of the equipment I have in my shop so I can periodically turn out piece by piece for my daughters and wife.

What's your story?

[Eric Johnson]

Nearly the same, have several of my great grandfather tools hanging on the wall. He built 1726 pianos in his lifetime. Shop was retooled during WWII and made caskets for the govt during the war, retooled again after that. Dad/Grandad made their fortune on a new product called "Formica". They cast about for a while until they landed a contract with a hamburger joint called McDonalds in the 60's. They sold some furiture. Never had more than 7 folks working for them at one time. I've been gluing up countertops since I was

1. Have been part of just about every aspect of furniture building since, home renovations mostly custom kitchens and offices. Got lost for a while in the computer industry after taking several CAD classes but have since found my way back to woodworking . Hey we all do something stupid when we are young don't we? I did make enough cash in the I.S. biz to outfit the shop pretty well. Been working as a tradesman in custom home building industry in Southern Wisconsin recently. Pretty big market for the Chicago weekend escapes around here. I've done some pretty cool high tech home offices and builtin hide the bigscreen TV entertainment centers doing SC work for a home theatre outfit. I would really like to get in to stairs. Most of what you see around here are factory built, nothing hand crafted anymore. I geally get inspired by Tom Plamanns work. If you haven't seen his website take a look. proof that not all American hero's occupations have the word "ball" in them somewhere. I do prefer to work alone as I have a tendancy to rub people the wrong way and my shop indicates that... 40 miles from anywhere pretty much. Not a lot of walkup business.

EJ

[Rob V]

I was 14 and a tree fell on out picnic table on the patio.

My neighbor had a radial arm saw and I "borrowed" some lumber from a nearby construction site. I was able to figure out the constuction of the table easy enough. and in 2 days we had a new table.

2 days after that we had new benches. And I was pretty much hooked.

My first real project was a drafting table I needed for HS. (working on the kitchen table was killing me) and been collecting "tools" ever since ;)

[Terry Sumner]

When I was a kid in grammer school (pre-1966) I used to enjoy hanging out in my grandpa's shop in his basement. Add to that my uncle up there in St Albans, Vermont used to build boats for Lake Champlain and my own father's woodworking shop and I was hooked before I was 12! In high school I took "shop" for all 4 years and it just continued on from there.

Terry Sumner

[John A. Voss]

My parents, younger brother and I moved into a new home when I was 11 and there was a couple in their 70's that lived across the street. He was into woodworking and liked to make Grandfather clocks and our family quickly became friends with them and spent almost every sunday evening together playing cards and such. I hung out with him after school and helped on several of his projects and was eventually allowed to use the jointer and various saws and started to learn to make things on my own.

I took some woodworking classes in 7th and 8th grade but was frustrated with it since I was limited in what I was allowed to do at school and could do almost anything I wanted when I was next door. I learned a lot hanging out with Carl and after my wife and I were married I met another guy that was doing similar types of things and played around in his shop a few times. Got away from woodworking for a few years but had a small shop in the backyard (8'x12' very small) and was limited on the tools that I had. My father-in-law built a sizable shop in his backyard so I started getting the itch back again so I doubled the size of mine and started to accumulate a few more tools mostly as they were needed for various home improvement projects around the house.

I attended my first woodworking show about a year ago and that really got me going. Purchased a new table saw, jointer, planer, band saw, drum sander and a couple more routers since then and have once again enlarged the size of my shop. It is now 12'x26' and I'm still banging into the walls. Anyway, I'm thankful for Carl, who passed on about 6 years ago and the great things that he taught me. I've signed up for a woodworking class at the local college this spring and I'm looking forward to that and I really enjoy the time that I get to spend in the shop with our 3 kids (4, 7, 8) and my ever so lovely wife who has no problem with me spending money on tools. :) :) :)

Best to everyone,

John Voss Prescott Valley, AZ

[Larry Laminger]

My dad's hobby was "piddlin' around in the basement". He usually had no choice but for me to be his sidekick. While he was "pidlin'" he'd usually give me a few pieces of wood to do a little piddlin' of my own. He'd get pretty involved in his hobby. I would usually get handed some scraps of wood and few hand tools to keep me busy. One time, (around age 6 or 7) I traced the outline of his hammer onto a board, cut it out with a coping saw, rounded it with a rasp and proudly showed dad a spitin' reproduction of his hammer in wood. He had a grin that wouldn't go away. Dad mostly built practical things for the house, nothing fancy but very functional. Mom was more of the artsy type with ceramics and needlepoint. What chance did I have growing up with these two :~)

I got to high school at just right time. An old school house in Elsberry, MO was revamped into the industrial arts building. Rockwell and some other big iron companies of the day stocked the building with the latest and greatest tools. Along with the wood shop, there was a metal shop, electric shop, power mechanics and a drafting room. They also provided some some great teachers. The teaching environment really encouraged creativity. The more hours you where able to earn (academically), the more freedom and time you had in the IA building. I earned lots of freedom. (It's horrible that our court system has made programs like this impossible today.)

My dad passed away when I was 16. Every project I've completed makes me wonder if dad still gets that same grin that he did with that wooden hammer.

That was all over 30 some years ago and I've been piddlin' with wood ever since.

[Silvan]

I remember the *how* of it, but not the *why*. I bought a miter box and backsaw, borrowed a jigsaw, and made a house-shaped curio shelf thingie for the wall.

I suppose it was some off-shoot of my first refinishing project. My girlfriend had graduated from college, and had decided to get an apartment here so she could stay near me. She needed furniture. We went to a used furniture place.

I was looking at some cheap dresser with no pulls, and I said "I can fix this. Just put some new pulls on it. It will be fine." Some passing sales guy hear this and said, "Oh, you like to refinish furniture do you? Come look at this."

So he really put me on the spot in front of my girlfriend, and we wound up buying the thing for $70, rather than the $20 dresser we had been looking at previously. It was covered in white paint, and someone had done a really bad job of stripping it. It was absolutely hideous, and I couldn't believe we actually paid $70 for the stupid thing.

So I got some junky refinishing book, some 3M Safest Stripper, some Minwhacks stain and Minwhacks poly, and went to town on the thing.

The bored can see it on my web site, except that the traffic this post will generate will wind up using up my bandwidth and shutting down my site. It is the basis for the "hutch thing." It turned out pretty well!

I suppose the "curio shelf thingie" was a reaction to my having the stain and poly laying around. I found some excuse to use the rest of it, making the house-shaped thing, and another one, this one mushroom-shaped, for Mom.

Well, that's it in a nutshell. The curio thingies lead to a plant stand and a few other projects. All of that was done in the kitchen floor. Then we bought a house, and I got a $50 table saw, and laid claim to the shed as my own. That was the beginning of my "real woodworker" period.

(Oh, the girlfriend in this story is SWMBO.)

No big deal. I have a formal education, and it qualifies me to do precisely nothing in the real world. The job I have is the result of *vocational* education. (I went to truck driving school four years out of college, because I couldn't do better than Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart wasn't earning me enough money.)

[rodgerp]

I got started by building things to make life easier. Shelves, brackets, stools, dog houses, etc. 40 years later that's pretty much what I build now only it looks a little better now. What really got me going was the purchase of a Parks Planer.

[Jon Endres, PE]

As a kid, I was used to having a shop full of tools, stuff that my parents had gotten from my grandfather's estate. I also recall my grandmother having some "mystery tools" that were stashed in a corner of her basement garage that nobody ever used. She also had a workbench in the basement with some old hand tools that she let me use whenever, so it was mostly a case of idle curiosity. Dad had an old Gilbert tool chest with some semi-useless tools, and I got them, and I remember the elementary school having a big wall cabinet chock full of all kinds of hand tools from the Stanley plant down the street, that once in a while I managed to finagle a look at, or maybe some use. So it's been in my life since very early childhood. Even stuff like cub scouts, and the fact my dad has 30 acres of woods and he has always burned firewood, I've always been around it.

Junior high school my woodshop teacher was an older guy who had been friends with my grandfather before he died. It was almost "assumed" that I was more used to the tools than the rest of the kids were. Once I demonstrated that I had a clue, he pretty much gave me free reign of the tools and the lumber. High school I was on a college track but still found time to take two years of woodshop, mostly lathe work and some clumsy attempts at hand tools, hand cut dovetails and such, but the shop teacher didn't know enough to teach me much.

Fast-forward to about three years ago, I hadn?t done any woodworking in about twelve years, except for a few years during which carpentry work was a poor substitute. I was never really totally away from it, just not ?into? it as much as I was as a kid.

Got a house, got married, found out the old tools in my grandmother?s basement were something worth having, and Dad had been saving the tool sin his basement for me anyway, so I was most of the way to a shop. I sunk a few bucks into some more tools, accessories and lumber, built a few things for the house, and now I am undertaking my largest woodworking project I think I will ever do. Bought a sawmill, and I am using the trees on my property to cut a 2600 square foot timber frame house, a new 24x40 shop building, and will do all the kitchen cabinets, built-ins, and a lot of the furniture for the new house.

I actually feel like I?m just getting started.

[Dave W]

My first woodworking project was carving my initials on my school desk in second grade. Second project was refinishing the desk. Actually true. Dave

[mel]

all good stories...hope I've sparked some fond memories of past accomplishments and past mentors...hope to see more.

[Upscale]

My father had a workshop in the basement where we lived in Montreal. My first foray into woodworking at seven years old, was helping him paint part of the house. I distinctly remember using some of his chisels to open paint cans. Naturally, I broke off the sharp tips. He didn't get mad, just told me to use screwdrivers after that. I also built a three level clubhouse in the backyard. It towered above the hedges and must have looked like the biggest eyesore to all the neighbours. My mother said I had a penchant for making boxes. Big, little, piggy bank size to clubhouse size, they were all boxes. I guess I still do it because my preference now is cabinetry, just another type of box.

[Victor Radin]

Must be a common genetic thread going on in here... My father was a shop teacher in NYC. Back in the olden days, before day care, he brought me to school with him on a regular basis- I remember being in his classroom (woodshop), and having my own miniature bench and set of tools he made for me. I spent a lot of time just absorbing knowledge in there from age 2 until I started school myself, and then it was a "treat" to go to school with Pop when my school was off.

Built my first bench in a closet when I was 5 or 6 from scrap salvaged from Dad's woodpile, and made my newly born brother his wooden first toy- a carefully jigsawed animal of unidentifiable species, which was not-so-carefuly sanded and stained.

Whenever Pop changed schools or shops it was a new learning experience for me and my brother- wood, metal, jewelery, ceramics, print. Most are gone now- shop just isn't important anymore in schools.

When he died, my brother and I split the tools between us- I have his machinist's chest, and some of the tools. All held in trust for my son who unfortunately never got the chance to know his grandpop.

So now I go down to the basement, piddle around in the shop, use some of his tools, and miss the old man.

[Swingman]

Breeding and lineage, just like a race horse. :)

Paternal grandfather was a rice farmer, blacksmith and wheelwright, made most of his tools, and was self reliant and resourceful enough to figure out a way to single-handedly paint smokestacks at a profit during the depression in order to feed his family, buy back the family farm which had been foreclosed upon when the banks failed and a bumper crop became worthless in

1929, and ultimately send 3 of four boys to graduate degrees.

Maternal grandfather was a rice farmer, hardware store and sawmill owner, and cabinet maker who built his own house and furniture from wood harvested on his property.

My father brooked no nonsense and was a firm believer in doing-for-yourself instead of paying others to do (still does) ... a common trait in S Louisiana, from whence I spring, when newlyweds start off with a shotgun house and add rooms themselves as the family grows. (if you are a stranger, you don't go to pee on a dark night in one of those multiroom houses and find your way back to bed without a map or a familiarization course while the lights are still on).

Dad always had the right tools for whatever job was needed and spared no expense in that regard. He never said "buy the best and only cry once", but looking back, I realize that was the unspoken philosophy.

I was expected to "use my head for something besides a hat rack" and, as adjunct to that, never got the idea as a kid that there _anything_ I couldn't do. If we, the church, or a neighbor, needed a new picnic table or two, I was instructed to build them ... and not having done it before was no excuse ... just "go take a look at Uncle Hugh's and build me four just like that". I built the boat, and the trailer, I used to duck hunt and fish in while in high school ... if I'd had time, I'd probably made an automobile out of necessity, but I managed to make the $200 it took to buy my first one (49 Willy's Jeepster) by loading hay out of the fields. (I did make a go cart in junior high that was the envy of the neighborhood.)

In college, and when first married, money was short and I made the coffee tables, night stands, bookshelves, etc, (poor as they were) to supplement the garage/rummage sale items needed to furnish a comfortable life ... I've never stopped since.

So I go back to the breeding/lineage first stated. I can afford the kind of furniture I like, but I can't find it to buy ... so my lineage kicked in, and here I am. ;>)

[mel]

Swingman wrote: I was expected to "use my head for something besides a hat rack" and, as adjunct to that, never got the idea as a kid that there _anything_ I couldn't do.

Dad's...God bless them. I've had that same fearlessness to try something I've never done that you speak of. I'm not sure exactly when it began but I do remember my father coming home one Friday evening and telling me I couldn't drive my first car (a sweet 65 mustang sold it for $2000 back in

1980) till I changed the u-joints. He handed me a box with the u-joints and told me I could find them under the car....that was the extent of his instructions. Looking back today changing u-joints is easy but to a 15 yo who'd never worked on one I was baffled...but I did it. Then there is the story of trying to change the starter on the same car...after spending an entire Saturday struggling with it and bound and determined to not ask for help my dad in his wisdom came to check on me..."you know son? That's not the right starter for this car." Learned something that day too...ask for help.

[Swingman]

Know the feeling ... could take apart with minimum supervision, and fix, a Ford tractor, and put it back together with no parts leftover, by the age of

2. Seems one thing that was always hanging off one of my appendages in those days was an old fashioned grease gun ... for some reason society could not have existed, as we knew it then, without the ubiquitous grease gun ... everything needed a periodic shot of grease, and shame on you if you let a fitting go dry!. Something you rarely see/use in this day and age.

I was never a mechanic, nor a worshiper of things automotive, other than out of sheer necessity. Last time I worked on one of my auto's was right before I bought that 78 3/4 ton GMC pickup ... the one with the big 454, or somesuch? But up till then, I don't think I ever took my personal car to a garage.

[JAW]

[snip]

I saw that my father-in-law, being retired for a number of years (25+), has no hobby (because work was his hobby), and is driving my mother-in-law crazy. I decided that being bored after retirement was no way to live. I started about 3 years ago, imersing myself into woodworking. Of course it did not hurt that my father gave me my grandfathers old TS. This was my first shop tool. Now if I am not working on a project, I am working on some sort of jig, tool, etc. for the shop. If my interest does not wane, I am looking forward to a second career after I retire (15 years away) from the current one.

Jerry

[B a r r y B u r k e J r .]

7th grade woodshop class, 1977.

I've built and tinkered (broke ) with things since I was old enough to remember. I was building and flying big R/C aircraft, and bought a table saw to rip wood for high stress parts. The more I played with the saw, the more I remembered shop, which encouraged me to acquire more tools, which had me flying less...

Then I discovered the router and hand planes and forgot all about r/c.

It's a slippery slope!

Barry

[Edwin Pawlowski]

I've often looked at furniture and other items made of wood. While intrigued at how it is made I never really pursued it. I know the limitations of my hands. My wife collects dolls and she would buy doll sized furniture for them and I'd finish it. Well, the stuff was generally crap. She said I could do better. While I figured I was not up to the quality of the stuff you see in magazines, I figured I could equal or better the doll stuff. So I did.

Started with a cheap Craftsman table saw, then added a router, etc. etc. As my skills improved, I bought some better tools and that made some operations even better. I enjoy all aspects of woodworking from planning, design, to the actual milling and cutting of lumber. It is very satisfying to see a project come together, to see parts fit well. I make things for the house, for gifts, for fun. Not for money as that would take the fun out if it for me.

By the time I retire, I'll have a nicely equipped shop and plenty of projects to keep me busy. Meantime, I'm enjoying the time I spend out there and my wife enjoys what I make for her. Ed [e-mail]

[Larry Jaques]

On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 17:40:55 GMT, "Jon Endres, PE" brought forth from the murky depths:

-snip-

Wow, cool story, Jon. Got a website up for the pics yet? Let's see!

I think that's pretty universal.