Woodworking, gardening and photography have been my main hobbies all my adult life. When I developed sensitivity to wood dust from the more toxic woods, I had to quit woodworking. Pryor to retirement, I had built up a nice hobby woodshop and all the shop photos are of that woodshop. In preparing for retirement, I decided to upgrade the shop with more industrial type equipment. I ended up with a shop that would rival Norman A’s shop. Unfortunately, I have no photos of that shop.

We live in SW PA. and I bought all my lumber from the Amish. Through the 1980s, I was paying $0.15-$0.20/bf for clear red oak, maple, black cherry and walnut. At that time, the same wood would sell for approximately $4.00/bf. There is a room attached to my shop area that I used to season the rough-cut lumber for a minimum of one year per in of thickness. That room is now a garden shed. With the exception of the nut bowl, grandfather clock and the blue cabinet, all other projects were made with seasoned, air-dried wood.

My very first project was a nut bowl I made in 7^th grade woodshop and I also made the anvil and mallet. My farther had a small machine shop in the basement and had taught me how to use most of the equipment. The nut bowl has been used every Christmas for nearly 60 years. Cannot find the mallet, I suspect it is in one of the Christmas boxes.

This is a grandfather’s clock I made for my mother about 1965. The wood used to make the clock came from my mother and fathers first dinning room set with the exception of the curved moldings at the top of the clock.

The poster bed was made from a walnut thee that the carpenter ants had attacked on my grandfather’s farm. This was my first experience with the Amish. It cost me $3.00 dollars to have the tree sawed to the sizes I wanted.

KarinL