Your earliest woodworking experience?

[Steve Rowe]

OK - my dad just got a new scanner and sent me this. Apparently, I started woodworking much earlier than I was aware of and apparently took it as seriously then as I do now. This was taken on Christmas day in either 1958 or 1959 when I was about 4 years old. Just what every woodworker worth his salt needs (a bathrobe, pistol strapped to the hip, and a cowboy hat to go with all those woodworking tools):D . This was amusing and I just wanted to share with the group. This isn't OT since it is related to woodworking but, could easily go in the Neander group.

So - what are your earliest woodworking experiences? Pictures would be most helpful.

57567

[Ted Miller]

Steve, My pop was a framer in Michigan and I always wanted to go to work with him as a young kid. So one weekend day when I was 9 he took me to one of his side jobs were he was framing a house and said, "see all those small pieces of wood laying around, pick them up and make a pile". Not sure what happened but I was hooked. I remember .50 an hour and after 8 hours of cleaning up and being a gopher I was hooked and very tired. I will never forget the scream of that Skill saw. Every weekend after that, summers and holidays I worked with pops on his side jobs til I was 18, yup pops worked 7 days a week most of the time. When I graduated HS then it was full time framing homes til I moved from Michigan...

[Randal Stevenson]

My father was born in 44, and they used to sell "kids" tool kits that had misc real woodworking equipment, He still has and uses his coping saw, and his block plane.

When I was a kid, we were dropped off in the toy section, while our parents finished shopping in the store. (toys were the babysitter, you could look touch buttons, but NOT open anything). Well, I hear it every couple of years, about how when they were ready to leave (mom and her best friend), they took away a plastic chainsaw. And the infamous, I want my saw, event happened.

Mom's best friend offered to buy me that saw if they would take me back just to shut me up, HOURS later.
Wasn't till middle school, that I really got to use power tools. Dad wasn't allowed to keep hardly any, and we weren't allowed to touch hardly anything that we could get hurt on.

[Carol Reed]

My grandfather put an old hand plane in my hands when I was about 7. He needed me to get out of his hair so he could get something done! Told me to fill a bucket with 'pine curliques.' Took me all day and one or two inbetween 'lessons' but I got it done. Then he took the bucket full into my grandmother for fire starters for her wood cook stove.

Success and affirmation on my first 'project' and I was hooked. Never looked at a doll again!

[Jim Becker]

I unfortunately can't account for any "early" woodworking experiences, for the most part, as I didn't take it up until I was about 40. I did help my dad build a small horse barn when I was a pre-teen, but I'm not sure how much "woodworking" I actually did on that. Pre-woodworking, I was doing my own home-improvement at my previous residence and that gravitated into what is now my "mental health" avocation. My first projects included a plant stand, some speakers and a sign for a new synagogue, a couple Adirondack chairs a la NYW and the cherry desk Professor Dr. SWMBO uses in her home office.

[Paul Douglass]

My father started me out very young. He was a master craftsman and a jack of all trades. There was nothing in the way of working with his hands he just couldn't do. Anyway, at a very young age I had access to tools, including power tools. At about 8 I made my mom a toothpick holder on an old lathe, for a Christmas present. My brothers and I built toy guns, swords, knives, go cart out of a 2 X 12... We had a great life as kids, lived in the country so my dad could "keep his boys busy". Unfortunately, I didn't inherit the talent he possessed. :mad:

[Mike Cutler]

1st or 2nd grade we made a little tugboat. A couple of pieces of wood nailed together, a dowel for the smokestack, and painted red. My first official project.

Actual woodworking started in the 7th grade.I took woodshop all through junior highschool, grades 7,8&9. Then in high school I did Vo-Tech type stuff at a furniture making shop during high School.

[Mark Singer]

I must have been about 4 years old and I found a hachet and picked it up and tried it on one of the door jambs in our home in NY....well when my Father found it....he didn't hit me...instead he explained a little about tools and how you use them. Then whenever he was working on something , I was right there at his side....as I grew a little older ...my skills improved and if he would reach a point where he was stuck and had to get another tool to continue....I would always try to impress him by solving whatever the problem was by the time he returned...then he would say.."Mark , how did you do that? Ruthy (my Mother's name was Ruth) the kid is a genius!" You know that kind of support from a Dad is so valuable when your growing up....

Had my Dad scolded me severly for the door jamb I ruined it may have changed my life comletely...I may not have been interested in helping him again...or building things ....or becoming an Architect! So be supportive of your kids and know the damage you do to them may be much worse then a pine door jamb!:rolleyes:

[Jeff Weight]

Christmas of 1970 (I was 4 1/2 years old), my parents gave me a kids tool set with a hammer, saw, screwdriver and tape measure. Kids tools back then were metal clones of the real thing. That morning I sawed the arm off our couch. A few days later I used the hammer and screwdriver to chisel chunks out of the new picnic table and benches my dad had just built. Woodworking has been in my blood ever since. :D

[Paul Canaris]

Around 1968 I made a set of built in speakers for my first stereo. I used a set of existing built in cabinets, Lower left and right cubbies. I removed the cubby doors and built a set of frames with acoustic cloth to cover the openings with a wedge fit into the cubbies. The speakers and crossover were mounted on a piece of plywood that screwed into the cubby openings. I think I used pine for the frames. All I had to work with were some quite old hand tools left to my mom when her dad died years earlier. They were all rusted and dull, but somehow I managed. That's what started the ember. My next project was not for another 12 years when as a young married guy, we needed some free standing cabinets and the toll purchases began. It's grown like a snowball since then.

[Bernie Weishapl]

My first experience was with my grandfather. I was 6. He was building a cedar chest. I can remember having a ball with him. He then let me build a small box with a hinged lid. My mom had it and when she died I could not find it anywhere in the house. Don't know what happened to it.

[Ken Salisbury]

Like they say "top this". My woodworking experience started in 1944 at 12 years old working in my Grandfather's wagon maker and patternmaker shop. I was basically the shop gofer but I sure did learn a lot.

[Pete Simmons]

Most likely made stuff earlyer but I remember turning a 18" model of a fast attack submarine for a contest Electric Boat in Groton, CT had. It was the 585 Skipjack. I turned the main body then added the tower, stabalizers and prop.

I won some tickets to the 1965 Worlds Fair in NY.

Funny, some 20 some years later I worked on the real 585 when it was in for refueling at Electric Boat.

[glenn bradley]

No pics but like most kids I was set to driving nails into a piece of scrap to keep me busy while dad worked.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I looked like the kid in the photo but for a different reason.....I was about age 6 at the time....one of my sister's was about 18 months old. She was standing inside a multi-paned storm door...teasing me...I lost my temper and struck the pane of glass with my hand trying to hit her....slashing my wrist...My mother 8 months pregnant with my younger brother chased me around the yard but couldn't catch me. As I passed the gate, I managed open it and get out into the street. Luckily for me a neighbor lady standing by a kitchen window saw our predicament and ran into the street and caught me. After a visit to the ER and many stitches I refused to use that hand. Dad was still building yard toys for us kids, so he bought me set of tools so I could help him construct the swingset, teeter/totter, etc.

[Jim Dailey]

Randal,

Ask your Dad if it was a "Handy Andy" tool set. I got one in about early 50's. I have a picture taken of me using the saw from the set (which I still have) that was taken when I have the mumps at age 6.

Not sure when I actually started... I can remember being out in the woods with my Grandpa limbing trees with a camp ax at about that time.... He didn't think it was safe for me to use a double bit ax at that age... I had to be at least 10 years old before I could graduate to a double bit.... :D

jim

[Randall Frey]

I too was the official nail pounder at my dads jobsites. That cowboy picture brings back memories of a great time, Thanks for that.

[Michael Gibbons]

I was a " BATMAN" fan so I talked gramps into making a "BATARANG". We drew the bat a a piece of plywood, cut it out with a jigsaw, sanded it smooth. drilled a hole, attached a rope and I went lassoing trees, fence posts and such, I tried swing from it but I weighed too much and couldn't keep a grip on the rope.

[David Duke]

Boy, this sure brings back a lot of fond memories. I too had a set of the "Handy Andy" kids tools. But my earliest woodworking memories is of using the old homemade band saw my dad had made, I had to drag up a box so that I could reach the cutting table, I couldn't of been more than 6-7. My brother and I made rubber band guns and sling-shots for every kid in the neighborhood and made them all again at the beginning of every summer.

My first carpentry work was when I was 13, mom and dad were building a new home and dad had me cut and nail in the fire-blocking between studs (something not done anymore). I cut on the band saw and hand nailed every block in that house myself, seemed like there were 10,000 of them; took me a month but eventually got them in.

I got into cabinet building after my dad had some new ones built. They did a lousy job and really stuck it to him too. My brother was building his home at the time and I told him I could do a better job than that and heck of a lot cheaper.........I was 17 at the time, been hooked every since.

[Randy Johnson]

Mine would have to be using grandpa's Craftsman scroll saw (only back then it was called a jigsaw) out in the little shop he had in a dogtrot extension on the house in 1957. I was maybe five at the time. The "shop" had been the bedroom of his only son who was killed a few years before I came along. Think bedroom=smalll. He managed to have a tablesaw and lathe in there along with the jigsaw. Last year I had occasion to walk through the dogtrot and see how really small the "shop" was. The stuff I have now would have a hard time fitting in there if it was just being stored. Somehow, without half the toys I have, grandpa made a lot of furniture that is still in use among the various children and grandchildren. He sold the lathe when he was still alive but I have the tablesaw (currently an outfeed table for the cabinet saw I use) and the jigsaw which hasn't made it to the new shop yet.
I also still have the Handy Andy type jigsaw that was MINE at about the same age. A piece of 1/2 inch pine would tax its ability but it was my first OWN power tool. I think an eggbeater drill I got at the same time is at mom's house somewhere.
BTW, I have the owner's manual for the table saw. Unlike today's offerings this one is a small text book on woodworking. It shows how to make countless jigs, give the angles for various shapes (octagon, hexagon etc.) and even has plans for making a base cabinet for the saw.

[Nancy Laird]

Wow! So many memories. I remember at about age 4 or 5 convincing my dad that he could cut me a jigsaw puzzle with his jigsaw. I did the gluing of the picture and drew the lines for him to saw; I think it had about 4 or 6 pieces. When I was 8 and my sister was "on the way", he built a dresser/chest for her room and I was right beside him, "helping" in whatever ways I could. Then at about age 10, he and his best friend decided to build a boat, and I again managed to get right into the middle of things with my "help." That was it until I married, and things took off from there.

Ain't nuttin' gonna stop me now!!

Nancy

[Doug Shepard]

I have some memory of taking a claw hammer to the baseboard mouldings. Apparently this was an early attempt at making something look antique. My efforts were not appreciated.

[Liem Tran]

My first experience was in the 6th grade. We made toy trucks. There wasn't much cutting, mostly glueing and sanding. My grandfather was a furniture maker and my uncles were cabinet makers.
Unfortunately they didn't teach me anything. The bits and pieces I know now was picked up from books and magazines.

[Bill Grumbine]

My very first "woodworking" experience did not end pleasantly, although it did not serve to deter me in the coming years. I was about four years old, and we were living in a rented house. I managed to gain unsupervised access to a spare room in the house and discovered my fathers hand tools. For the next however long I amused myself by driving a slotted screwdriver into a windowsill with a hammer, removing large divots of wood.

When my mother called out to ask me what I was doing, I told her I was one of Santa's helpers and was helping him build things. She got suspicious, and I was busted! My memory of the events immediately following is kind of hazy, but suffice to say I was not allowed near tools for quite some time afterward!

Bill

[Chris Bolton]

Dad, yelling from upstairs: "What are you doing down there?"
Kid: "Nothing"
Dad: "Well what are you doing it with?"
Kid: "A Hammer"

My earliest memories revolve around an old weeping willow tree in the backyard. We used that tree to make bows and arrows, heart shaped divet placemats for Mother's Day. hats and all sorts of other goofy stuff. Granddad gave me a penknife which I still have today.

[Steve Rowe]

I talked to my Dad about the Handy Andy question. The only thing he recalled was that it was a tool set and that it was in a blue tool box. He nor I have no idea what happened to that set.

I apparently was a little less mischeivious than a number of the others posting in this thread. My dad said that was what the big block of cedar was for. Cutting the arm off the sofa was particularly amusing although I am sure it was not all that funny at the time.

Thanks for the posts, there are obviously a lot of fond memories about woodworking.

Steve

[Bruce Boone]

When I was 5, I used my brother's Scout handbook and built a rolling go cart with steering and brakes. :D

[Per Swenson]

Awe Heck Fellas,

Daddy explains away the dent in my forehead as a slight

kickback incident while teaching my Mother tablesaw technique

during the third trimester.

Go ahead, top that.

Per

[Dave Avery]

Awe Heck Fellas,

Daddy explains away the dent in my forehead as a slight

kickback incident while teaching my Mother tablesaw technique

during the third trimester.

Go ahead, top that.

Per

Absolutely hilarious......... and back then he didn't have a Festool sander to blend out the imperfection.......

[Mike Cutler]

Awe Heck Fellas,

Daddy explains away the dent in my forehead as a slight

kickback incident while teaching my Mother tablesaw technique

during the third trimester.

Go ahead, top that.

Per

Per.
I gotta have a beer someday with your Pop. If he's half the character you make him out to be, I'll be wetting my pants laughing on the second beer.:eek: :eek: :D

Too funny.

[john dennis]

My dad was the smartest uneducated man I ever knew. He was a factory worker all his life and did "side jobs" to make additional money. He could do just about anything except being a good dad. I had to work for him starting at about the age of nine. I didn't want to be there, because he never talked to me. He would talk all day if one of his friends came by to help, but we never talked. In spite of the misery that caused me, I learned so much as a kid that I became a carpenter simply because I wanted to. I never had any formal training but eventually worked as an assistant superintendent for a small construction company in NY. I built cabinets twenty years ago that I know are still being used to this day. I've done kitchens, islands, bookcases, etc., not to mention plumbing (including cast iron waste lines), electrical work and fixed all my own cars and motorcycles for years. I even worked as a camera repair man for Eastman Kodak in NYC. I didn't learn all that from my father. What I learned mostly from my father was to be fearless, ask a lot of questions from those in the know, and then just go and do the "d*mn job." One more thing I learned. I talked to my son a lot when he was young and still do. He's a construction superintendent in Florida and does cabinet and furniture making in his spare time.

[Zahid Naqvi]

Mine was a very boring (to tell) start. My father is an engineer and during one of his trips to Japan brought a hitachi shop in a box. This is back in the 71/72 time period, I think the tools are still operational. He made the usual utility stuff, a riding horse (actually it was an elephant), a ping pong table and some other odds and ends. I remember he used nails and screws quite a bit, no recollection of glue being used ever. The hobby lasted about 5 yrs. but it had me hooked. I took a 30 year hiatus, About 3-4 months after I bought my first house with a garage I was thinkning woodworking, then I met Dennis Peacock which basically sealed the deal.

[Jason Hallowell]

I have been working with wood for longer than I can remember. My Father was a carpenter/contractor, and I spent much of my childhood at construction sites helping out in whatever ways I could. For my 7th b-day I was given a set of carving knives, and a huge box of exotic wood scraps by a family friend who was a furniture maker. I used those scraps to make and sell whistles and other trinkets for many years.

[Steveo O'Banion]

Thats a great picture! It deserves a place of honor in your shop!

My dad came from a long line of carpenters, he and my mom built the home I grew up in, in 1957. Mom's dad was an excavation contractor and my mom worked in a hardware store in the 40's. She can still talk old school tools and hardware! I still have my great grandads tools and tool box.

I remember being about 5 and helping my dad build a bird house (still have that) and making a garage for my Tonka trucks. What a great memory, I can still remember (being short) and looking up at him measure and cut and showing me how to do it. No game system can even remotely approach this kind of family time.:)


Steve