Hi all,
So I barged in here a little while ago, asking questions and spouting =20
off. I suppose it's time I send in a bio. Besides, Galoota-claus sounds like too
 much fun, so that may have been the push I needed to get this in. (Sorry if thi
s rambles a bit):

The first old tool I bought was No. 5 Stanley jack plane (=9250s era,
=20 found at a flea market). I was taking a =93Working by Hand=94
woodworking class at Gary Rogowski=92s school in Portland, Ore. I
couldn=92t afford =20 machinery at the time anyway, so I used it to mill
stock square for a =20 long time. What a great way to learn woodworking.
That was almost 10 years ago, and nowadays, I have to confess, I do kill
electrons to do =20 a lot of my grunt work and rough milling (that=92s
what they had apprentices for back in the old days, right?) But I do
love working by hand to do most of my joinery, shaping and surfacing.

Even though I knew I liked hand work back then I really didn=92t think
=20 or know much of anything about =93old tools=94 for woodworking until
I =20 took another class, taught by Brian Boggs, the Kentucky
chairmaker. We were supposed to bring a drawknife to the class. Not
being able to =20 locate one new, I surfed around online and located an
old James Swan.

At the class, Boggs helped me tune it up. I was amazed. What a fantastic
tool! Then he started talking to the class about chisels. He told us, by
the way (this has to go down as a bit of galoot lore), =20 that when he
first started making chairs, he chopped mortises with an =20 old square-
shafted screwdriver that he ground a chisel edge onto. He said he
eventually moved on to vintage socket chisels. And told us a little
about the old chisel makers -- Barton, White, Swan, PS&W. After that, I
started poking around, buying a few and fixing them up -- often an
investment of considerable time -- and I was hooked. I have become
rather obsessed with old chisels.

I began trying to put together a set of Stanley 750s for my basic
furniture work, to replace the Marples Blue Chip chisels I had been
using for so long. But I soon got frustrated. On the site we don=92t
like to talk about I found them going for $25-$30 apiece, plus shipping,
plus the time involved to flatten the back and maybe make a =20 handle,
plus the sandpaper used to flatten the back -- not an insignificant cost
if it was in bad shape.

All of a sudden, those newly introduced $50-apiece Lie-Nielson chisels
weren=92t looking so expensive after all. So I took the leap and bought
a set. That was 2004, I think. They are fine and lovely tools, nearly
ready to go right out of the packaging. And yet Why did I always reach,
when I could, for that old Swan firmer that I =20 had fixed up. I loved
the patina, the feel of it -- like it had a soul. The L-Ns certainly
hold an edge well, but I am not convinced I can get them quite as sharp
as that old Swan. So now, piece by piece, =20 I=92m building up a set of
Swan bench chisels.

I have a variety of others, too, in various states of repair. It
takes time to tune them, but I have found there is something magical
about that instant, after getting the back of an old beat-up chisel
flat and polished, and then grinding the bevel, and then honing the
bevel -- and just like that this glorious glinting, shiny, perfect
edge emerges on a tool that maybe hasn=92t seen an edge like that for
=20 50 years. Somewhere, an angel sings and a long gone cabinetmaker
gets =20 his wings.

Someday, when I get my "new" set of old chisels finished, I may just
sell off the L-Ns.

I still have that chisel obsession, but I=92ve started down the broader
=20 slope, too: planes and saws mostly. I don=92t consider myself a
=93collector.=94 I don=92t think I would buy a tool unless I planned to
fix it up and use it in my woodworking, which is still my first love.

I=92m a big James Krenov fan (I like making my own wooden planes, too).
=20 Though I think what I admire most about his work is not the designs
themselves, but the way he leaves the evidence of his hand work on his
pieces. Toolmarks left behind can be sloppy or they can be art. His are
definitely the latter.

I have a day job, working as a copy editor at a newspaper in Eugene,
Ore., a wonderful wife and a young daughter -- but I try to steal as
much time in the shop as I can.

I=92m happy that I found you people. This is a great forum =96 for just
=20 being part of a chat, or for getting good helpful information.

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