OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

73455 Bretton Wade <brettonw@m...> 2000‑01‑12 bio
Hello Galoots,

I have posted a few questions, but no bio, because of a lurking arrangement.
I'm at least partially famous for walking into this big room and announcing
a Stanley #1 on *-bay. I apologize to Mr. Faullin for that.

I'm an architect by training (VT '93, Cornell '95), and a software engineer
by practice. I've always been interested in "tools", meaning those things
that help a person to accomplish a goal, and my software development
background started as I pursued development of tools to support
architectural design and visualization.

I had a "lucky" experience in school when a local artist was commissioned to
do a Shinto prayer screen for the College of Architecture. His material was
black walnut, clear and straight grained, and it was blessed in a true
Shinto ceremony. I took a small piece of that scrap and made some tools for
pottery turning. I steamed the pieces over my stove, and bent them into an
S-curve using a scrap of 1x10 and some nails. I then split the piece to make
two matching tools. These are still the best thing I have done in wood, by
far, and I suppose my luck is because the pieces were blessed. I won't
describe the horror that the artist produced.

I got the p*w*r tool lust from watching Nahm on PBS, and started buying up
"bench" versions of the tools he used. I gathered up a bit of a collection,
but still found that I wasn't able to magickally turn out beautiful things.
I blamed the tools.

A friend had a Sorby gilt edge try square that was a beautiful tool, brass
'I' section with a rosewood infill and blued blade. He introduced me to the
art of fine woodworking. That was the beginning of the end. He gave me a
copy of the Lee Valley catalog, and oh what wonders I beheld.

Now I record Roy on PBS, and my wife's Saturday entertainment is my rambling
commentary as we watch Nahm ("Hey Nahm, what are you going to do about that
tearout?" or "Hey Nahm, did you notice the burn marks the router left on
that expensive wood?").

I'm still gathering tools, but I have enough now to do some primitive work.
I smacked up a bench from an old aquarium stand and a table top, drilled
some holes, and made some dogs from scraps of oak. Mostly I frame the
stained glass that the lady of the house turns out at an alarming rate, but
SWMBO is expecting an end table sometime in the near future.



Recent Bios FAQ