Joel_BC
Super Self-Sufficient
Well crealbilly, I really love this thread and all your woodworking pics.
If folks don’t mind, I’ll tell a little story. When I was in my mid 20s, I had a good friend and neighbour about the same age. We both enjoyed seeing fine woodworking and were looking for something other than boring, ordinary jobs that hopefully we could earn $$ at. So there was an unused building (no more than 20x20 ft) on the property I was living on and we decided to start a woodworking shop in it. I had previously built a workbench with a 4”-thick top and a wood vice, but I owned only hand tools and an electric drill. And the building had no wiring, no insulation, no heater so we added all that with our own brains & hands.
For the fun and getaway of it, we drove an old pickup 600 miles west to the big city and (with our savings) we shopped at a tool reseller where they bought up stationary tools—some of it good old stuff (‘50s/60s vintage) from estate sales, and some commercial-grade power equipment. By new-price standards, the basic things we needed were cheap. We came back with a table saw, drill press, jointer, bandsaw, and lathe… most of it either General or Rockwell. We started experimenting with kitchen cutting boards, simple furniture, and even simple musical instruments like a dulcimer. I’ll admit I, even more so than my friend, had an awful lot to learn.
All was pretty hunky-dory until my friend lost his girlfriend got involved with another one, and they decided to move away after a couple years. I wound up with a fair half of the power-tools invested in. But meanwhile, my wife and I had a daughter, and we moved off that property to the place I live on now. I got very serious about budgeting the household income and every investment in equipment has had to make sense. Since I was sometimes working as a carpenter, my hand tools generally did make sense—squares, hammers, circular saw, levels, chalk line… you know the rest. But at home it made more sense to invest in a better (but used) truck, a welder or a washing machine or a computer rather than in even weekend-warrior woodworking machinery. Blah, blah, blah to the present day.
Besides, the local population here is not large enough to support the prices the labor-intensive fine woodworker should fetch. Plus I didn’t have any particularly strong design talent, which a good woodworker needs. And there was always more than enough to do between homestead tasks, money earning, and being with my family. But I do like what people like you can do!
To make a short story long (heh, heh), I have done enough to appreciate fine woodworking.
If folks don’t mind, I’ll tell a little story. When I was in my mid 20s, I had a good friend and neighbour about the same age. We both enjoyed seeing fine woodworking and were looking for something other than boring, ordinary jobs that hopefully we could earn $$ at. So there was an unused building (no more than 20x20 ft) on the property I was living on and we decided to start a woodworking shop in it. I had previously built a workbench with a 4”-thick top and a wood vice, but I owned only hand tools and an electric drill. And the building had no wiring, no insulation, no heater so we added all that with our own brains & hands.
For the fun and getaway of it, we drove an old pickup 600 miles west to the big city and (with our savings) we shopped at a tool reseller where they bought up stationary tools—some of it good old stuff (‘50s/60s vintage) from estate sales, and some commercial-grade power equipment. By new-price standards, the basic things we needed were cheap. We came back with a table saw, drill press, jointer, bandsaw, and lathe… most of it either General or Rockwell. We started experimenting with kitchen cutting boards, simple furniture, and even simple musical instruments like a dulcimer. I’ll admit I, even more so than my friend, had an awful lot to learn.
All was pretty hunky-dory until my friend lost his girlfriend got involved with another one, and they decided to move away after a couple years. I wound up with a fair half of the power-tools invested in. But meanwhile, my wife and I had a daughter, and we moved off that property to the place I live on now. I got very serious about budgeting the household income and every investment in equipment has had to make sense. Since I was sometimes working as a carpenter, my hand tools generally did make sense—squares, hammers, circular saw, levels, chalk line… you know the rest. But at home it made more sense to invest in a better (but used) truck, a welder or a washing machine or a computer rather than in even weekend-warrior woodworking machinery. Blah, blah, blah to the present day.
Besides, the local population here is not large enough to support the prices the labor-intensive fine woodworker should fetch. Plus I didn’t have any particularly strong design talent, which a good woodworker needs. And there was always more than enough to do between homestead tasks, money earning, and being with my family. But I do like what people like you can do!
To make a short story long (heh, heh), I have done enough to appreciate fine woodworking.
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