Guess it's time that I got around to posting this. In my 57 years I’ve
operated printing and photo processing businesses, worked as an
antique-helicopter mechanic and a Mac Tools distributor (professional tool
nut) and for the last 25 years have operated a vacuum tank truck business
located in a beautiful mountain valley in rural central Utah. Other
interests include being a private pilot, and recently coming away from a
benefit auction with a three-year-old mare.
With encouragement of SWMBO, we started construction last year of a
woodshop, as an addition to our existing backyard welding & machine
shop….figuring it might be a GOOD thing to keep the stuff that makes sparks
away from the stuff that makes sawdust. It's finally almost habitable.
An old (mostly technical) book and tool collector / user for years, I
resisted woodworking tools until one day discovering my surname stamped on a
century-old wooden molding plane made by Griffiths of Norwich. That led to
my catching the woodie-bug real bad. There's something about the way light
moves across the rays of gently worn beech and the smooth feel of that old
boxwood that looks like gjetost cheese.....
This summer an acquaintance in a nearby town needed a damaged black walnut
tree removed, so there's now about 200 bf stickered against one wall of the
shop. This area is not noted for fine hardwoods, mostly Englemann spruce
and Ponderosa (yellow) pine, piñon, Utah juniper, and quaking aspen. (I've
been told that a quaking aspen grove is the world's largest living
organism....all the trees are clones.) There are some non-traditional
hardwoods I plan to investigate like scrub oak, mountain mahogany, Russian
olive, and sage, so feel free to email me if you have particular experience
with these.
Let me say to you folks up on the porch who are ready to rehash the
asked-before questions from apprentice-level lurkers like me….you sure have
my admiration. Keep on doing it!
Respectfully,
Syd Griffiths
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