Erling

28 May, 2020

Hello. It’s been awhile since I’ve checked in. I’ll get straight to the point of this article. A man named Erling.

After I had parked my truck at work, and was walking to the shop, I looked into the scrap metal dumpster. I look into that dumpster frequently to see if there might be something I can use in my basement machine shop. As I looked in yesterday I saw a little “parts” cabinet. The kind with a bunch of small plastic drawers for storing screws, nails and other such hardware. I opened a drawer and saw random junk. Upholstery tack, curtain brackets and such. Then I opened the large bottom drawer and saw a piece of paper, on which the words “ration card”, caught my eye. I then saw a photograph of a young woman and another of a young girl. It caught my interest because photographs don’t end up in drawers unless they have special meaning to someone. I was curious.

I picked that cabinet out of the dumpster and stuck it into the bed of my truck with the intention of looking through everything after work. I did just that and what a treasure I had found. I love old tools. Old tools were made so much better when people who knew how to make tools were in charge and not shareholders. When those old tools have the original owner’s initials or name on them they becom more precious to me. I’m a mechanic and I have spent a lot of my hard-earned money purchasing tools so I understand those old guys. I get sentimental when I look at an old pair of Starrett calipers with the initials “WJH” stamped into them. I wonder who that guy was, what his trade was, where he purchased the tool etc. The saying goes “purchase good tools and they’ll outlast you.” How true. Purchase quality tools, take care of them and they’ll last for generations.

I got home from work and took that little cabinet down to my shop. I found, in addition to the photographs, a fuel ration card from WWII, many paycheck stubs from 1945-1961, a chauffeur’s license, vehicle registrations, deposit slips, an assortment of keys, receipts from credit purchases and a lot of junk hardware. I learned the guy’s name, what he did for a living and where he lived in my town. His name was Erling and he was an appliance repairman. Learning his trade created, in my head at least, a bit of camaraderie.

I imagine he purchased this cabinet to keep in his service truck and then put it into his garage, or basement, when he retired. Maybe it was always at his home. I don’t know. I only know that a bit of a man’s story got tossed into a dumpster because someone thought it was trash. I think that tossing this little cabinet away is disrespectful to Erling and all he had done in his life. I feel like I owe it to the guy, from one blue collar tradesmen to another, to clean up that cabinet and preserve the things he thought were important to save. I will do just that.

I searched the internet using his full name and learned some things about Erling. He lived to be 80 years old, was married to the same woman for about 50 years, they had one child (a daughter) and he died twenty days after his wife had died. The two photographs in the little cabinet were of Erling’s daughter. One photo was her at about 3 or 4 years old and the other (guessing here) as a high school senior. Erling’s daughter is also deceased. My internet search also produced two photos of Erling and his wife (they look like church directory or, perhaps, wedding anniversary photos to me) and in both photographs they display genuine smiles. They were happy and it showed.

I don’t know the circumstances that led to Erling’s cabinet being in a scrap metal dumpster. Maybe someone who purchased his home after his death found it in a dusty corner. Maybe a distant family member was sorting through boxes of “stuff” that had been passed down and tossed it out as “junk.” Whatever the situation, Erling’s little cabinet is now safe in my basement. The documents are in varying degrees of decay. I don’t know if they can be saved, I’m a mechanic and not an archivist, but they will be photographed for posterity. I will clean the plastic drawers, straighten the bent cabinet and, if necessary, repaint it. Whatever documents I can preserve, along with the photographs of Erling’s daughter, will be placed in the bottom drawer where I found them. Maybe I’ll print this article and include it in the drawer so that when I’m gone this cabinet might mean something to the next person to find it.

I hope that when I’m gone my family will, at the very least, look through all of my things before throwing away anything. There may just be some little nuggets of my life tucked away in some innocuous little cabinet.

I'm Not A "Maker"

28 January, 2020

This first paragraph is being written after I have completed the rest of this article.  This is a typical ramble from me.  A simple subject that seems to jump around in a confused manner.  I've tried to keep this article short and to not wander down the many paths that I could have wandered down.  If I had done so this thing would turn into a book.  Maybe I should have gone down those rabbit holes.  Hell, nobody reads this stuff as it is.  Whatever.  

In a conversation with a new coworker our hobbies, outside of work, were discussed.  Long story short he said "Oh, so you're a maker!"  My eye twitched, steam just started coming out of my ears but, thankfully, my brain was moving faster than my mouth.  "Maker?  Not really but it's similar." 

Is the "maker" moniker really so bad?  No, but I think of "maker" as a title for someone who hasn't earned their stripes.  The kind of person who, a year ago, didn't know how to sharpen the iron of a jack plane (or even knew what a jack plane was) but has a nine month old YouTube channel with 500,000 subscribers and is looked on as an "expert" in something.  I can see that they're complete noobs, which isn't a bad thing, but what about those viewers who don't know anything at all?  Are the blind leading the blind? 

I wouldn't, or couldn't, expect these freshly-minted "makers" to be preaching the book of Schwarz right from the start, but I do expect them to do some research before making videos and before begging for money "to keep the shop going" from the newbies.  It could be a simple statement along the lines of "Here's how dovetail joints were made in the old days and here is how I'm going to do it."  Letting the newbies know that there are many ways to complete a task is enough.  Maybe they'll do their own research or maybe they won't.  But they should have that option.  

I see makers as being more "all around" people.  Us old folk might scoff at "the damned CNC button pushers" but fail to see that the "maker" we're shaming built that CNC router and the computer that runs it.  If us older people could learn to shut up and listen we might just have a nice conversation with a young person.  A polite conversation leads to people asking questions and learning new things.  I'm getting better with this skill. 

Speaking of woodworking specifically, I started learning about it at a very young age (there are previous posts that cover this topic) and learned most of my skills the old fashioned way.  Reading and experience.  I didn't have the luxury of YouTube but when YouTube was available I was able to put a nice polish to the skills I already had.  In some cases I learned that I had been doing certain things the hard way.  Always learning. 

Funny story.  Years ago (six?) I watched a video from Jimmy DiResta.  I saw that he had a lot of subscribers but I had no clue who he was.  I watched more of his videos and saw a lot of familiar things which prompted me to send him a message (when you could still send PMs on YouTube).  I mentioned that he and I seemed to have similar skills and asked him if he learned them from shop class at school.  He replied stating that, yes, he learned a lot of what he knew from shop class and also his Dad.  I learned later who Jimmy DiResta was.  Imagine bumping into some guy you recognized "from that one movie", chatted about it and then found out it was Al Pacino.  Back to the topic at hand.

This whole post was brought about because I was curious about the demise of Popular Woodworking Magazine.  I bought my first issue in '99, right about the time Schwarz started at the magazine, and kept on reading.  That magazine steered me down a different path from the "New Yankee Workshop" path I had been on.  It led to books I had never heard of.  I learned about proper workbenches, what a jack plane is capable of, what a sharp tool can do and how to sharpen tools properly.  I chose to go down the path of "hand tool woodworker" and have enjoyed every minute of it.  But that's my choice and my own personal standard.  Your mileage may vary.

Sanding.  Lots and lots of sanding.  That's how you can differentiate between "maker" and "Woodworker".  Until I had jumped head-first into hand tool woodworking I didn't know how much I hated sanding.  I hadn't known better.  I thought I had to have pad sanders, random-orbit sanders, sanding blocks, the reams of sandpaper to go on those power tools and a dust collector (never had that part) to suck up all the dust.  I thought I had to work through the grits from coarse to fine.  It was clouds of dust that clogged my sinuses, penetrated my clothing and got all over everything in the garage despite the shop vac hookups on those power sanders.  Then I got some hand planes, made some card scrapers and learned that I hated sanding.  Curly shavings from hand planes don't clog your sinuses and provide a much better finish.  Hand planes also don't round over ever corner and edge the way sanders do.  I learned what a proper hand saw was, how to sharpen them and how to use them.  I also learned that a proper kit of hand tools can be had for the price of one "Ultra-Trac Festung Super Corner Joint-O-Matic" power tool.  Old hand tools were made when quality mattered.  They don't require expensive batteries.  Hand tools are also quiet.  I'm prone to scold a young person with something like "You took a 3/4" thick board down to 1/2" with a fucking belt sander?  Are you stupid?!?"  That's what I'm saying in my head but what comes out of my mouth is "Well, you got it done.  May I show you another way of doing that job?"

Take it all with a grain of salt.  Just because my way of doing things is "right" to me doesn't make it "right" for you.  Just be warned that the more you learn about woodworking, the more you'll be like me.  Walking through the local farmers' market, scoffing at the "primitive" or "rustic" "furniture" and how the "craftsman" couldn't be bothered to actually mortise the hinges and went the "maker" route and just slapped those hinges on the cabinet face.  If you're a young person and you bump into an old codger like me, who's griping about dark stain being put onto pine, how about you hold off with the "Ok, boomer..." comments.  How about asking the old coot why stain over pine is a bad idea and the mark of a noob?  You might learn something.  You might also teach that old bastid something.  If everyone can learn from one another without the restrictions of "right" or "wrong", "new" or "old", we'll all be better off.