OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

-519 Chuck Myers <crm@s...> 1970‑01‑01 Bio, etc.

Hello everyone,

Great idea, this.  Many thanks to those who donated time and resources
to make it possible.  Like many others, I've become frustrated with
r.ww lately, mostly because the traffic volume seems to be growing
exponentially.  With other things going on in my life I find that I'm
able to read only a tiny fraction of what's there, and just can't often
afford to contribute.  I feel strongly that if I do, I assume some 
responsibility for monitoring the thread and responding to followups.
Just don't have the cycles to do that, so I end up increasingly being 
in lurk mode despite desires to the contrary.

As background, I work at the Software Engineering Institute in
Pittsburgh and live a few miles north of the city.  Though I have a
fairly substantial technical background, my work addresses the non-
technical (i.e., human and organizational) factors that get in the
way of doing technical work effectively.  I guess you could characterize
me as one of the SEI's resident smurfs.  My skin will even turn blue
if I hold my breath long enough...

I own and use both power and hand tools, including [gasp] a few of the
Cra[]sman variety.  Bruce, maybe we could continue your support group
intro offline...  :^}  Actually, they're all pretty old, including RAS
I purchased back in the '70s, and bandsaw that belonged to my father.
I got started with hand tools when he passed away and I took home a
#5 and a transitional he had, along with a lot of other tools (both hand
and powered) he had out in his garage/workshop.  My interest grew as
I discovered and began reading all the Neandermania there.

Being in Pittsburgh, I guess you might say that I'm in a corner of old
tool heaven.  There must be 40 antique shops [that I know of] within
an hour's drive of my house.  You don't get rock-bottom prices there, 
but they would be considered quite good in most places, from what I've 
read and been told.  There are plenty of estate sales in the area, as 
well, and you can pick up some real bargains at these.  Don't intend 
this as a gloat, just trying to calibrate expectations a little.  Oh, 
what the heck, maybe I do like to gloat just a little.  ;^)

My hand tools include quite a few planes, plus a few other useful
doohickies.  Let's see, planes at last count included #3 (2), #4 (2),
#4 1/2, #5, #5C, #7C, #8C, #10, #76, transitional jack, and wood bodied
cooper's (radiused in two dimensions).  Also have a couple of nice old
Disston hand saws, as well as a saw vice (same manufacturer) I picked
up last weekend but haven't used yet.  Various and sundry others.  BTW,
the 4 1/2, 7, & 10 are late model British Stanleys.  They now perform
well (w/ Hock blades, etc.), but I learned a *lot* about tuning getting
them that way.  "If you haven't tasted the bitter, how will you know
the sweet?"

On the way [sometime] are quite a number of my wife's maternal grandfather's
tools.  My wife's native German, and her grandfather was a master
wheelwright, or at least that's the closest translation I can come up
with.

I don't consider myself much of a woodworker, really, but aspire to be.
Frankly, it's kind of intimidating being married to a woman whose father
and [other] grandfather are/were master carpenters.  There's much to be
learned there, just wish we could spend more time together [it's hard
when you're 7K miles apart] and communicate more effectively.
Fortunately, my lovely bride of 26 years praises my poor efforts 
effusively and keeps what she really thinks to herself.  Made a great 
choice there, I did, all those many years ago.

I guess my .sig pretty much sums up my general attitude toward life.
I'm looking forward to getting to know you all better, learning from
you, and perhaps offering something of value from time to time.

Chuck

--
Charles R. Myers, Jr., PhD           | There comes a time when a man's got to
Senior Member of the Technical Staff | grab the bull by the tail and look the
Software Engineering Institute       | problem in the face.
Carnegie Mellon University           |                  -- W.C. Fields


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Recent Bios FAQ