Official Luthiers Forum!

Thought some of you might enjoy some pics I snapped this morning. My friend Chris and I spent a few hours this morning seeing an impressive tool collection. Gene is in his 80's and suffers from Parkinsons, but was getting around well and enjoyed sharing his collection with us. Gene was Chris' Sunday School teacher when he was a kid, and he helped me with some machining for an engineering design project when I was in school in the mid-90's.

He has many hammers (300?), handplanes, saws, and other interesting tools. The neat thing was that he knows a lot about the history and use of these tools as well.

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

holy handplanes batman! Now that is one impressive bunch of planes!

_________________
John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Can you ask him if he'll adopt me please .

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

This is your shop on TAS.

Impressive!

Honey! Honey, come here. Look sweetheart I don't have too many tools. This is over the top, me, I'm just an average guy with an average tool collectio... er, I mean shop. Yeah average workshop...

I've long been a collector of old wooden moulding planes, and what I see there makes me drool....dang, to me, that IS Fantasy Island!

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Jon,

That's a real Santa's Grotto!! Fabulous.

It would be cool if you could spend some time with Gene with a tape-recorder capturing some of his "wisdom" on the history and use of these tools. All too sadly this sort of "knowledge" is disappearing as chains in the "word of mouth" transfer break down. Once broken it is gone forever. Modern society values some wierd things highly and other things it seems quite glad to ditch imho.Dave White39026.3676388889

_________________
Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

I do plan on spending more time with him. Due to his Parkinsons he can only go a couple hours before he needs to stop and rest (his wife makes sure he doesn't overextend himself, he was excited and kept wanting to show us "one more thing"). I probably won't record him, but next time I may take better notes and individual pictures of some of his more favorite tools.

Here's another site that has put up some pictures of Gene and his tool collection.

Another interesting thing he showed us was a personal letter from Jimmy Carter. Gene makes beautiful plumb bobs, and sent a few to Mr Carter with a letter telling a little bit about himself and thanking him for his work with Habitat for Humanity.

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Wow! What a great collection of tools!

_________________
Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Nice collection! It looks like he has a little (actually a lot!) of everything there, you could actually get things done with these tools. Some tool collections are focused on themes like miniature planes, braces, Polynesian adzes or some such, and are owned by people who don't do any woodworking themselves; I always find that a little odd.

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Yeah, he's an avid woodworker and machinist, and he still likes to make things.

Here's a few more pics:
Here's an old wooden plane from the early 1850s... The sign on the stand notes, "Made by prison labor."


I can't remember what kind of bench this is called, but he built this recently. He demonstrated it and took some shavings with the draw knife.


This is a display in his living room. The small plane is a Lie Nielsen #1, serial # is 29 if I remember correctly. Also, you can see a bow saw that he made from a bent branch. There are also some of his plumb bobs, one made from tagua (vegetable ivory).

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Wow!

_________________
Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

I am reduced to a glazed-eye, slack-jawed stare.

Very sweet collection.

Very inspiring.

Ron

_________________
OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

Jon that is one awesome collection. I'll bet one of the wood mags would do an article on that.

_________________
Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

Good suggestion Bob, that would be a great way to learn more on this fine gentleman. Great story Jon, thanks!

Ronn- I was going to join you in your Tools Anon. statement until this post. I,too, feel relatively sane now.MT

Wow! Awesome collection and great thread... Thanks!

_________________
I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

[QUOTE=Miketobey] Ronn- I was going to join you in your Tools Anon. statement until this post. I,too, feel relatively sane now.MT[/QUOTE]

Kind of puts in perspective eh?