Dear fellow galoots,
My name is Greg Moncada and I'm an American living in South Africa.
Before I get started on the bio, I'd like to say thanks to the many avid
hand tool users for offering insight and useful ideas to the list. I've
almost always come away with some nugget of information that was of
interest--especially when woody hand and molding planes are on topic.
I am the Middle School Principal at the American International School of
Johannesburg. The school provides an American-style education to
expatriates working in the country. Coca Cola, Caterpillar, Boeing and many
other global corporations need to provide their workers' children with an
American equivalent education.
Our big draw is a Northern hemisphere calendar, so students coming from
above can fit into our year-cycle.
My wife and I have worked in International schools all of our working
careers. Before South Africa, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and before that Bilbao,
Spain. We've had a good run and have circumnavigated the globe three times
while traveling. We've settled a bit and now have three children so our
travel is largely restricted to malaria-free zones. Still we get out there
and our most recent excursion was to Jeffreys Bay mainly known for its
surfing. We all took lessons. I mostly fell in the water a lot.
Of course the real reason for going to the Cape was to hunt for hand tools.
South Africa has been the first country we have lived in where I could pick
up my life-long practice of woodworking. I started in childhood and my
father gave me the basics. I took some idustrial ed courses at university
and spent my summers at Sintes Yacht works in New Orleans as a woodworker.
While there, an old guy named Roosevelt taught me how to use a Stanley 113
and I learned how to caulk labstrake using ancient caulking tools and an
enormous mallet. I was not well skilled though my desire to learn more
about hand tools percolated for years.
So we've settled a bit and during this time my love for building things with
hand tools once again emerged. Vintage handtools are abundant and (until
recently) quite inexpensive. The wood that one can find here is truly
beyond belief. Many of the woods are from central Africa. Fair prices,
too.
I am now deep into wood handplanes. I love getting them back to working
order as much as I love using them for projects. I still have a user set of
steel benchplanes and numerous other stanley planes.
Recent projects include a traditional yellow wood table with stinkwood legs
and a new work bench for the shop.
Though I'm reluctant to admit it in this forum, I do use up a few electrons
every now and then for production work. I use is a vintage EmcoStar
combination machine oomplete with the EmcoRex planer/jointer. They're both
hobbyist tools however its virtues outweigh its limitations when combinded
with handtools. The best is that it is small enough to bring along to our
next destination.
I've waited a long time to write this-almost a year. Admittedly, I had much
to learn.
Once again thanks for the useful, interesting and lively offerings.
Greg Moncada
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