How long have you had sawdust in your veins?

[peter halle]

Alex,

Thank you for your post.  The background you developed will continue to help you with your woodworking, but I am sorry you didn't have the ability to go further.

On another note - as you wrote this did you expect to find another person on this forum - let alone in the USA who knows FischerTechnik?  Well you have.  I have several of the sets that were given to me from about age 11 to 14 by my father.  A little history might be in order.

My father was born in Berlin.  Served in Hitler's youth as a child when it was equivalent to the Boy Scouts in America.  As that movement changed, he didn't agree and did what was normal at that time, he apprenticed himself to a company.  He went to work for the Bank of Barclay in Southwest Africa in exchange for boat passage there and guaranteed boat passage back at the end of his program plus just enough money to survive during his employment.  World War Two broke out and he was a German citizen in a British colonyu.  Go directly to intern camp and do not pass go. 

After the war he found and married my mom - South African - Dutch by descent.  Made their way to America to get away from war torn Europe and the racial stuff in Africa.

The Fischer Technik tools, with their gears and motors, and hinged parts really did inspire.  The engineering on them is fantastic.  For you readers who enjoyed Legos or for the older ones the Erector sets, the pieces are nylon and have many characteristics of the aluminum extrusions found on the MFT.

I don't and won't have any kids.  It would be nice to find a child who I would feel confident that they would enjoy the toys as much as I did.

Again,  Alex, thanks for posting.

Peter

 

[WarnerConstCo.]

I grew up in a farming family.  You needed to know how to do most everything.
Spent a lot of my time growing up at my Dad's parents house, right across the field from home.
I can't remember how many sheds (for bucket storage, grandpa had a thing for buckets, as do I), dog houses, etc.

Grandpa was a farmer, carpenter, coon hunter, free mason, custodian and several other things over the course of his life.
I guess he got me hooked on building things. 

I have worked in welding shops, still enjoy that, did foundation work (basements, slabs, flat work and stamped), I was a custodian for 1 1/2 years (where grandpa retired from), pretty much been building things all my life.

My Dad is not real handy with houses, he was a mechanic for 27 years, straghtened frames.  I saw him take two cars, one good front, one good back and make one good car out of them.  I can also spin wrenches with the best of them.

So, thanks Gramps, where ever you are.

 

[woodshopdemos]

So, I am old. I think I was first a wood worker when I was 10  or so (yep,62 years ago.) I wasn't interested in woodworking but real nuts about photography. My parents gave me the use of the basement bathroom. It was more a closet but it was mine. Ta that time, they were building garden apartment behind us. I worked out a deal with the super if I cleaned up, then I could tale any scrap of wood less than 2 feet. I did and built myself a beautiful darkroom of solid oak flooring. tr was a great darkroom. I took pains to have the flooring properly pieced on the floor, on the walls, for cabnets, for worktable top and for the wet side. That was a great intro to woodworking, I just didn't know it.
  On a higher scale, on my honeymoon n 1963, new wife and I went to  Williamsburg. I found the cabinetmakers shop and watched for about 100 hours. Wife went on all the tours. I went and gawked at the cabinetmakers. They were great and gave me a chair and told me to sit anywhere. I spent about 2 hrs with each craftsman. Mt wife would pull me out in time for lunch and dinner...all the rest was at the trade shop.
  Then my wife would see an antique in the catalog and ask if I could make that. "yes with a new tool." and that is how I started. I reproduced 5 or 6 reproductions. 5 Chippendale mirrors they got to be great presents), Queen Ann gateleg table, two Parsons tables all repros of WIlliamsurg catalog. Fun

 

[EcoFurniture]

In my case, it's not about having only sawdust running through my veins. It's there, together with iron dust, stone, plastic and more exotic stuff like capacitors, computer code, music, drawings and poetry. And a sniff of paint of course. I'm not a real woodworker in the way that I dedicate my life to creating furniture or doing carpentry, but it's just that I like to create ALL things I can imagine and fix all stuff that is broken. Doesn't matter if it's a stationary object like a chair or a house, I also like working with/on machines like cars, computers, electronics, and whatever.

I was raised in a body shop so I learned to work with tools as soon as I was old enough to lift them. When I was 7 or 8, I couldn't do any real work on the body of the cars yet like sanding, grinding or welding, but I could use a screwdriver to disassemble the lights, the mirrors, the grill etc. One thing led to another. My father wasn't really keen on wood, he preferred working with cars, but I got a taste of wood as soon as I was old enough to bring a hammer and nails to build tree cabins to play in with my friends. I live just 2 miles from the sea and we have a lot of dunes around us with forestry. They are also littered with German bunkers from WW2 to protect Hitler from you big bad Americans.  [laughing] So there was ample opportunity and material to build secret hide-outs with my friends.

Next to that I had a myriad of toys. My favourite toys were Lego and FischerTechnik. Everybody knows what Lego is and what you can do with it, but FisherTechnik is less known, and today, it's hardly sold anymore. FisherTechnik is made by the same company that makes the well known Fisher plugs. Just like Festool, another German quality company. I always loved making stuff with Lego and then let my fantasy loose and play that I was some hero in another universe. Great stuff and I spend many hours buildings all kinds of spaceships and machines with it. Lego was the fantasy and social toy. Me and my brother had a lot and we always had hordes of friends over to play with it.

FisherTechnik on the other hand was more technical. I was always building that stuff on my own because now one else had it or understood it. For instance, it had real electronics you could build yourself, connecting transistors and capacitors and chips on special motherboards. It also had an elaborate pneumatics system with a REAL compressor. Festool used to be called Festo before the year 2000, and now they still have an industrial pneumatics line under that name . That was the stuff you could build with FisherTechnik too. Lego came with a line of programmable robots later on, well, FisherTechnik was about 15 years earlier with it. It never had the mass appeal Lego had though.

So all this really hooked me into building stuff. Jigs, machines, buildings, you name it.  I grew up expecting I would take over my father's body shop and was always working there when I had some time. My younger brother never expressed any real interest in it. When I had to go to college after high school I of course choose for something technical. Mechanical engineer. Very quickly I decided to take side courses in Electrical engineering. Learning to build machines and computers at the same time. All very interesting. But I must say, I never put my heart in it for the 100% needed, because I always had in mind I'd take over my father's body shop.

By that time it wasn't just a 'body shop' anymore, because we also transgressed into paint spraying industrial stuff like air ducts, machine housings   and scissor lifts. And furniture. Most of the furniture was industrial series work like CD towers, but at one point we got work from a very exclusive furniture company. That specific company was run by 2 woodworkers, and they made very special designs and very expensive tables that would cost about 4000 euros a piece. This sort of furniture, although not this specific table, which I just pulled of the net as an example to give you an idea. But they wanted us to spray all kinds of special designs on those tables, an honour that befell to me, since there was nobody else in the company who could do that.

Well, and that was the moment I really fell in love with furniture, and wood. Working on those tables was a joy I never felt before because I felt I really did something special, something artistic. Something that would be appreciated by people who really knew what they where talking about. With cars, there's no artistry. "oh, how nice, it's all yellow, it's all red, it's all black". Of course people are happy the car they had looks really nice again. With the industry stuff nobody ever gave a  how it really looked. With the industry all that matters is that it won't rust away the next 5 years. But with this expensive furniture, I felt like a Michelangelo, working for Popes and Kings.

And I really wished I could make such a table myself, from the ground up, and not just spray some pictures on it. So whenever I got the chance later on, I started to form stuff out of wood.

Unfortunately the whole idea of taking over my father's business went sour at some point, because we got troubles in the family, my parents divorced after 27 years of marriage and the family was split up. My father behaved kind of badly and both me and my brother severed contact with him. Shortly after my father's business went broke.

Since then I've just been building stuff on my own. Fixing the house since it was in a bad shape and nobody's really done anything about it in 30 years. Study went down the drain because I realised being an engineer is not building stuff but more designing stuff. I didn't like it at all that all I had to do was work on paper, doing calculations and drawing designs. I wanted to really build things with my own hands, like I've always done.

So no more spray painting for me, no more designing, no more electronics, I just worked in the local harbour for 10 years, loading and unloading ships. Until I got sick of it. Of the work itself and how people (the bosses) treat you in that business.

But I did keep on building stuff, painting and repairing stuff. People around me started to notice and asked me if I could do jobs for them. So now I'm always doing these jobs.  [smile]

OMG! Fischer Technik! I almost forgot about it... That stuff was amazing. We constructed cranes, trucks, bridges and many other cool structures. I also had a lot of Lego, but didn't really like it as there was never the right colored piece and therefore my creations looked totally wrong  [eek]

Anyhow, thanks!

 

[family]

My woodworking desire came from watching others in the neighborhood remodel, patch or whatever they were calling it to their homes and buildings. All of us were poor so they did the best that they could afford. Some were flooring installers, another was an electrician and maybe another a plumber. They seemed to trade off labor within the old mill village. I would pick up scraps of this and that saving those items thinking to make something to play with. I would somehow gather without planing enough scraps and junk to assemble some type of a toy.  By going to this neighbor and that neighbor borrowing tools my idea would come together. never square or straight but it seemed to work, even if only a short time.  I made push carts that never seemed to hold up but looking back it was fun making it and getting to ride even if only a short time before the inevitable happened, it broke down. I started mowing lawns in the neighborhood at a young age for money. Most of the yards I would receive 50 to 75 cents for the job. I had a couple that payed $1.00 to $1.50, this was the money, you know! I would save the entire summer to be able mail order buy a tool from Sears. My first tool purchase was a Jig Saw, you would have thought I had won the lottery when it arrived. This was the start of real woodworking for me. I finally at a young age had some control with my cuts other than old dull handsaw cuts. Joints seemed to be tighter and the scrap built toys would last just a little bit longer. From there I seem to have lived to make it to the modern Festool Age. "What Joy"!!!   

 

[peter halle]

Thanks to everyone so far for their great stories!  But, with over 7,000 members...

We want More Stories!

 

[woodguy7]

My earliest memory was when i was around 7 (39 now) helping my uncle in his garage.  I remember helping him to make a cart out of an old wooden fish box & some pram wheels, i loved that cart.  He & my dad subsequently built 2 new houses & i was involved in both as much as i could after school & weekends etc.  My dad was a farmer but i always wanted to work with wood.
From the age of 16 i worked full time with a joinery contractor & have been working full time ever since.  Up until 4 years ago (when i started my business) i would work 9 hrs a day, come home for my dinner then head back out to do "homers" for another 4 hrs, I really love my work.  I don't do the homers anymore, to much paperwork.
Definitely sawdust in these veins but thankfully still enough red stuff for the blood donors 

Great link peter, good to read other's stories.

Thanks, Woodguy

 

[johnsonri]

My earliest memory...I was around five years old (32 years ago then) with my grand-pap in his basement where he would make the parts for his Lionel train collection. I was the 'collector and holder' of the parts  He'd use different joinery techniques...and I'd be amazed that the various boards just fit into each other...no screws or anything...HOW AMAZING to me. It was almost like magic.

Then to see all the work together as a completely operating train station, country scene, etc. my little mind there was just in awe!!

Fast forward to my teen years (early 80s)...no woodworking. Home computers were coming of age and that had 100% of my attention. Well, that and girls too  [big grin]

I came full circle and picked up woodworking because my interest in computers led me to make my own acrylic computer cases and accessories. I needed tools to cut and bend the acrylics. Cutting acrylics led to me to a certain EZ system...and from there, I eventually discovered the Festool system. 

Rey

 

[Wim]

My background is steel, not wood. Most male family members from my fathers side were in some sort of steel related technical job. My grandfather was a steam engine operator/supervisor. One uncle had a repair shop for steam gear as used in big laundries. Another uncle was head maintenance of a big laundry (with a lot of steam gear). My father started as turner at a lathe and ended as manager of a large machine shop for precision products. They made for instance the legs for the Starfighter F104 jet (for the European versions).
So it was no surprise that I became a mechanical engineer.
When needed I did some small repairs in the house. But I worked on wood as if it was steel. I used the same tools (hacksaw, drill, file) and that was it.
When I was about 30 I visited a few times an uncle (married into the family), who had a carpenter shop. He had learned his trade in the pre-war aeroplane industrie, when the planes changed from spit and wire to wood and linen. The same company (Pander) made also exclusive furniture so after the war, my uncle started to make furniture. Then he decided to set up his own workshop and started to restore furniture for the rich and famous (including the Dutch royal family). If I was not so steel oriented then and had spent more time with him, I would be a much better woodworker now. But he learned me a few tricks of the trade.
About 20 year ago I started to develop more interest in woodworking and bought some specific woodworking tools like chisels, a plane, a woodsaw and made a workbench in a corner of the attic. Everything I made was pure functional, like a high fence and a small shed in the back garden, wooden door casings for ready made interior doors.
My ex had a language school and I converted a big room into two smaller rooms with a separation wall with doors and windows. I also made a set of small tables. The tables had a special form so they could be set up according to the number of students in the class.
I slowly built up my skills now but I still feel being just at the beginning of the road when I see the perfect products of the forum members. I have a lot to learn.
About 3 year ago I discovered Festool and that gave my a real boost. I never developed a steady hand to saw and chisel straight. With Festool it was just a piece of cake.
Now I'm making a workshop in the basement. When that is ready, I will go on with woodworking and will start to make furniture that will be made of nicer wood than fir and plywood/MDF and get also stained. So I hope to be a "real" woodworker in the future. And the oil in my veins will be replaced with sawdust (but the MINI is sucking most of it before it comes into my system).

 

[Rob-GB]

What a great thread!

My father started out as a carpenter's apprentice, then due to the village carpenter being called up for WW2 he gained employment with a local bricklayer/plasterer/roof tiler, until the army took Dad to north Africa and then later Changi, Singapore. (both times he was posted to POW camps dealing with German and then Japanese POW's) He had some great stories about them.
On his return and De-mob, he was sent to trades school for bricklaying etc. Fast forward many years and the birth of many siblings.... I was asked what I wanted for my 5th birthday, my reply was to go with my dad to work. With 9 children to feed we rarely saw him, I was told I could go with him on saturday when he would be more able to take me.
That Saturday I spent with Dad will always stay with me, I took a couple of toy cars and played with them in the shavings from the pitch pine doors Dad was installing, the smell remains a favourite memory, drank sweet tea from his flask and watched him work.
Years later after studying metalwork and mechanical engineering at school and college I found no work in those fields available but an advert for a carpentry and joinery apprenticeship caught my eye.
It turned out that not only do I have an ability, but, absolutely love working in wood. It has enabled me to work in several countries, make furniture through to houses, gave me the opportunity to build and refurbish several boats, Cruising barges, Dutch barges and yachts. Not to mention the brilliant craftsmen I met on the way who inspired or taught me new techniques.
While bricklaying paid the bills, Dad never lost his passion for woodworking, after retiring and even after two strokes he continued to make dolls houses for his granddaughters and great granddaughters, while being avidly interested in the latest project I happened to be on. I guess I am the quintessential chip of the old block, with rosin/resin for blood ;D  I miss him and his advice, though I smile when I get an interesting new project that makes me think of him. [big grin]
Regards Rob.
How long have you had sawdust in your veins? I guess I was born with it

 

[jonny round boy]

Great story, Rob! [thumbs up]

 

[Rob-GB]

Great story, Rob! [thumbs up]

Thanks johnny,
Trades school was in Yorkshire. While Dad was there he met his first wife. [big grin] I can just remember a trip there to Giggleswick in a Reliant three wheeler (Regal?) But that is another story [big grin]

 

[dltflt]

My dad was definitely a big influence on me.  I grew up in a 200+ year old house and dad was always remodeling some part of the house.  He had a table saw and a few other power tools.  When I was about 10 I got my first router and made plaques for the neighbors decoupage class.  When I was in my early twenties I got a Shopsmith with many of the optional tools.  I did quite a bit of scrollsaw work for a couple people that did craft shows.  After that it has been mostly person projects around the house and few for friends.