OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

135849 Sean <coalandice@y...> 2004‑08‑13 I owe Bio
Seeing as how Rex has come out of the woodwork, or
gone into it ? and Anthony as well, I shall now do the
same and comply.

Sean Yates lives outside Liberty, Indiana in Union
County with SWMBO and a small-ish herd of feline
associates and has done so for two years.  The move
from the industrial Northwest of Indiana (Duh Reejyun
for you Rats and Archibald Mackinlay readers) home of
the late great Jean Shepherd, a Galoot if e’re there
was one, combined with home and land ownership and a
relative paucity of fiduciary resources necessitated
an education in the manual arts in an immediate way. 
Stumbled across the works of Aldren Watson and Roy
Underhill and the rest as they say…

No background in woodworking, other than the most
basic sort of tree felling in the Boy Scouts while
aging to maturity in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. 
Out of high school did work for a piano technician for
a year and boy don’t you bet I wish I still had that
job! The parochial school I attended had no shop
classes – indeed the closest they had was a drafting
and mechanical drawing class taught by an elderly
gentleman who was very very part time due to health
concerns.  Dad was the son of a share cropping farmer
in Brooks County Georgia and then a chemistry and then
an electronic engineering major in college which he
worked his way through as a mechanic in Arlington, VA.
 He did what he could to educate me about things
automotive on the weekends, but his personality was
better suited to, well, certainly not teaching,
anyway.

My ambitions are purely practical although the lure of
the quality hand tool and the lore of the dadoe and
rebate and ogive is strong.  Have started acquiring in
earnest in the last six months or so and just
discovered the vagaries of the farm auction.  Indeed,
I have some acquisitions I shall be asking questions
about as soon as I learn how to make and post digital
images so that others might view them.  Passionate
about the Yankee spiral ratchet screwdriver in it’s
guises and a big fan of the ratcheting brace as well
post vises and anvils.  The age or rarity of a tool is
not nearly so important to me as it’s cost and
fulfillment of a need, or perceived need, anyway. 
Heck, if it’s cheap enough, I’ll find a need for it! 
Living where I do tho, although not the happy hunting
grounds of industrial New England nor Lancaster
County, there does indeed seem to be little effort
involved in locating old tools.  Why just this
weekend, SWMBO uttered an emphatic no with regard to a
post drill and post vise...

Traveling along parallel lines with woodwhacking is
ironmangling.  Took a class in that just this July and
aside from learning humility enjoyed it immensely. 
There is a local group here:

http://home.fuse.net/geisler/OKI

I shall annoy with my presence starting this month. 
Hope to delve more thoroughly into timber framing as
the barn needs help and I can’t abide the idea of a
steel pole barn even if it is less costly…If you are
in and around the neighborhood, please drop a line.

Sean Yates
coalandice@y...

	
		
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Recent Bios FAQ