OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

-777 JTWad@a... 1970‑01‑01 Introduction
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 10:22:26 EST



Dear Galooti, 

Although Ixe2x80x99ve been lurking on the list for several months through egroup
s 
digests, Ixe2x80x99ve gone live now so I can post an occasional nugget or two, 
assuming the old squirrel brain can remember where it put 'em. 

But first, the customary introduction: 

After 34 years at the same company, I'm headed for retirement in a few 
months.xc2  How does May sound?xc2  Damn good to me.xc2  SWMBO (who's already re
tired; 
she only made it to 33 years!) and I will be deserting our native NYC (for 
most of the year,anyway--we're going to see how it goes) for the farm we've 
been fixing up the last two decades and more in Delhi, NY--in the western 
Catskills, where the hills are low and rolling and still dotted with 
Holsteins.xc2  Jack from Endwell will know just where it is. 

In anticipation of the Great Day, we've had the barn shored up and re-roofed 
and re-floored and re- a lot of other things; and, in addition to housing the 
tiller and tractor (we garden) and the truck (we snowplow a half-mile long 
driveway), there's going to be a nice cozy woodshop fixed up over the old 
haymow.xc2  About 18 x 24, lots of windows facing south and west, radiant heat 
tubing under the floor, good lighting, and even a few spare *l*ctr*ns 
available in case a Normitis attack overtakes me. 

Well, now, you galoots may be thinking:xc2  "Wahoo!xc2  Here's a guy starting ou
t 
with nary a neander tool to his name!xc2  And a goldarn city slicker to boot!"xc
2  
Wrong, wrong.xc2 (OK, maybe the boot part.)  After all, we've had the farm all 
these years, and there's already another shop in the barn next to the new 
woodshop, and while SWMBO was furnishing the house from garage sales, I did 
just wander over to the tool tables once in a whilexe2x80xa6xc2 Oh, and my job d
id take 
me to England quite often, and who could pass up the great Saturday pushcart 
fiesta on Portobello Road?xc2  Or Covent Garden's Jubilee Market on Mondays?xc2 
 Or 
Camden Passage, early Wednesday mornings? 

So some time I'll tell you about bringing a suitcase full of pigsticker 
mortise chisels through the very antsy security at Heathrow airport just as 
Desert Storm was getting under wayxe2x80xa6xc2 And I will own up to a YB infill 
or three 
as well, augmenting the usual pile of arn from New Britain. 

Now, skills--that's a different kettle of eels.xc2  I've done some woodworking 
classes to the point where I can make a decent dovetail and a half-decent 
mortise-and-tenon, and I do get a good euphoric buzz on after a few minutes 
of making long, diaphanous shavings with a well-tuned smoother, but when it 
comes right down to it there ain't much I've really, well, made.xc2 But we need 
more bookcases for the house, and of course there's all those planes and 
chisels and saws to house, so I guess I'm going to launch into actual joinery 
pretty soon. 

One last confession:xc2 While most of my tools are users, there is one thing I 
just plain collect.xc2  A few years ago I bought a beat-up old wooden jointer at
 
a tag sale.xc2  When I got around to cleaning it up (don't wince, fellas, 
nothing coarser than 80 grit was used), the toe revealed the maker's mark in 
the usual zigzag border: A.INGLIS/DELHI.NYxc2  Well, well,well!xc2  And here I a
m a 
local history buff and a wannabe neander--how could I resist?xc2  So now I've 
got a few shelves full of Archie Inglis's planes, plus his census data, 
copies of his immigration record and deed to his house and his probated will; 
my hope is that one of these days it'll make a nice little article for the 
EAIA Chronicle. 

Oh, and if anyone on the porch is hiding a stash of Inglis planes, e-mail me 
and let's talkxe2x80xa6 

John Wadsworth 



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Recent Bios FAQ