64 ■ POPULAR WOODWORKINGEnd Grain
It Wasn’t Always Like This
By John Rooney
1 Pop and his wife on a homemade
trailer.
2 A few of Pop’s tools, still getting
some use in the author’s shop.
PHOTOSCOURTESY^OFTHE^ AUTHORWhen a family friend recently
visited my new cabinet shop, he
commented, “Your dad and grandpa
would’ve loved this place. It wasn’t
always like this!” He meant that
although both men were pro wood-
workers at various times in their
lives, neither ever experienced the
pleasant working conditions, robust
tools, or the wide variety of mate-
rials, fi nishes and other resources
that we enjoy today–and at times
perhaps take for granted.
As I thought about this later, it
brought back good memories–imag-
es, sounds and aromas–that I hadn’t
consciously pondered in decades. In
the 1950s, when health issues forced
my maternal grandfather (“Pop”) to
retire early, he set up a small wood
shop. Pop still did his daily work on
an ancient 8" bench saw with a rag
tied over his face to mitigate the
dust, and we couldn’t take more
than two steps without bumping
into a tool, a wall or each other. The
shop was little more than a 10' by 10'
appendage to the back of the garage,
poorly lit and ventilated. Today few
people would consider that space
an adequate garden shed, let alone a
working shop.
Pop’s tools were a study in frugali-
ty. I don’t remember him owning
a tape measure, but he did have a
drawer full of folding rules that had
been broken over the years at vari-
ous random lengths. “Why toss out a
perfectly good rule that measures out
to 2 feet,” I can still hear him saying.
He probably hadn’t bought a new
hand tool since Prohibition, but just
kept replacing handles, regrinding
tips, renewing edges and doing what
was necessary to keep the old tools
in service.
In those days, before imported
alternatives, power tools were quite
expensive in terms of total house-hold income, more so than today.
This (along with the huge postwar
DIY movement) created a market
for multipurpose machines and kit-
based, shop-built power tools. Pop’s
budget consciousness, however,
avoided even these. Besides the small
table saw, his go-to daily arsenal of
equipment included a 4" jointer, a
’40s-era bench top shaper, a curious
little 5" circular saw, a couple of
well-worn^1 / 4 " drills, and a home-
made 12" disk sander. Virtually all of
these were acquired secondhand or
rescued from certain death and refur-
bished. If Pop’s consumer philosophy
were distilled into a credo, it would
have been something like, “Noth-
ing is ever really worn out. You can
always fi nd a way to repurpose or use
it some more.”
What, you might ask, motivated
this refl exive devotion to thrift and
self-reliance? I don’t think there
was any single factor, but certainly
childhood poverty, and the ethos
of survival, self-denial and deferred
gratifi cation that characterized
those who lived, worked and raised
families through the Great Depres-
sion and WWII played a large part.
There’s also much to be said for the
sense of accomplishment, perhaps
fading now from our common
experience, that comes from simply
making do —by dipping into our
creativity and resourcefulness and
using what we have on hand—rather
than running to town with our debit
card whenever a need arises.
I was captivated by Pop’s stacks
of vintage how-to and woodworking
magazines, some of which even then
were 20 to 30 years old. I would
spend hours immersed in them.
After supper we might look over
a project article or two, and he’d
explain how thus-and-such was a
good idea, or suggest improvements.His mind was full of fascinating
“hacks” – for both the shop and life
in general. I remember (and still
use) many of them, and often wish
I’d written them all down. Money
can’t buy a more valuable “appren-
ticeship” than that. Sometimes,
when the shop is quiet, my thoughts
wander back to those days when Pop
taught me how to tune a plane, or
roll the edge of a card scraper, or any
of a thousand other things. Would
he understand why my work today
requires a line boring machine,
multiple saws/shapers/etc., or a shop
that’s bigger than my fi rst house?
In some ways I think he would, but
probably not without pointing out
some things I could do to get by
with less. PWJohn Rooney is a cabinetmaker in Texas.1
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