They don't make them like they used to

The Fat Kid (me) has been busy. Not busy with anything interesting, just, you know, CoD:MW2/gym/work busy. Definitely not socially busy (more on that shortly).

First things first, I enjoyed the hell out of this portfolio of machinery and machinists.

View it here:

http://portfolio.streetnine.com/machinery/?utm_source=20x200+List+-+Survey+A&utm_campaign=1433b3ad0c-Tuesday_Edition_Joseph_O_Holmes_200_Minute&utm_medium=email

It reminds me of my grandfather.

There was a time when you could find guys like this all over the country. They have largely been replaced by computers and, more tragically, 'moved offshore'. Now we give them their own television shows*, make them into obnoxious celebrities manque (even if they build appalling, unrideable junk). Barf.

There was a time (pre-Craftsman) when good hand tools were beyond the reach of the recreational mechanic. They were either wildly expensive, or they were junk. My grandfather was an accomplished mechanic and woodworker and he bought an antique wooden block plane in the 50s that was already 100 years old. He bought it from a furniture store that was using it as, and I am not kidding, a decoration. He immediately put it back into service, which is where I encountered it in the mid 80's. When he died my grandmother asked if I wanted any of his stuff; I identified two things: his dog tags from WWII, and the block plane. Those two things said more about him than anything else I could think of.

He would have looked right at home in the machinist pictures.

Sad ending: I got his dog tags, but not the block plane. My uncle took it in one of his many scavenging missions through the house before my grandfather died. (He couldn't take the dog tags because my grandfather had them on his key ring.) In the end it's good that someone wanted it. I think.



* I should point out that Jesse James has legit cred and it's maybe not fair to lump him with the Teutul clowns. His bikes are lame but the guy has real talent as a fabricator and builder. More importantly, he's not a loudmouth asshole, he's just an asshole. There's a difference.