About Me

I was born in a small town (pop. 2500) in Texas in the thirties. I spent my youth working around cattle and other four-legged animals and pumping gas and fixing flats in my brother's gas station.  After high school, I joined the U. S. Navy.  I spent thirty-four years in the Navy as an aerial photographer, photographic interpreter, and finally as an
intelligence officer.  I retired in 1987 and started work for an aeronautics company in north Texas.  I'm still at it 18 years later.  I have a wife, four kids, several grandchildren, and one great granddaughter.

I started woodworking in the 1969 when I got married and my wife started giving me small tailed tools for all occasions - birthday, father's day, Christmas, etc. I built a lot of furniture using those things - benches, tables, a cherry display cabinet and blanket chest, desk, bookshelves, hutches, kids' furniture, etc. We couldn't afford to buy anything, so we would go into a furniture store, and my wife would point out what I needed to build. A lot of these items are still in use. Since we were moving around in the military, all the tools (including the tailed ones) were small and portable - until I got a ShopSmith in '82. That is the nearest I ever came to owning a table saw.

In '80s, I started watching Roy's Underhill's Woodwright program and fell in love with real (hand) tools. I started picking up odds and ends - mortising chisels, transitional planes, wood and metallic planes, old hand saws, a plethora of miscellaneous tools and oddities, many shelves of woodworking and tool related books, etc. I swore never to become a collector - I would only buy tools I would actually use. I'm sure many woodworkers know how well that works out.  At least I take a few shavings with each new plane as I get it; therefore, all my tools are technically users - and you never know when you will need a half dozen jack planes for some project.

I do have to admit that I have a "thing" for router planes (especially the miniature ones).  I have picked up a number of them over the last few years - both patented versions and ones made by craftsmen and patternmakers.  I'm afraid that has made me a "collector" - at least of mini-routers.

I belong to the SWTCA and M-WTCA tool collecting organizations and enjoy the tool meets. Even if you don't buy anything, it is always a pleasure to talk with a great group of friendly people who are knowledgeable about woodworking tools.. My wife and I love going to yard sales, estate sales, and flea markets (especially the 200+ acres of Canton's First Monday Trade Days in east Texas). You never know when you will find something that you just can't do without.

My shop (known as the Fort Worth Armadillo Works) is now so full of tools (and stuff), that I have to work under the carport on a WorkMate when I actually make anything. My last projects of note were a mesquite coffee table for one of my sons, a mesquite breakfast room table for my wife, and a bunch of shelves for books, dishes, etc.