1. Name (and nick names)
Bob Smalser
2. Age/DOB
57 Years, Sept 10, 1948
3. Location (present and previous)
Camp Union, Washington above Hood Canal, where we are building our retirement home and shop on a tree farm we’ve owned since the late ‘70’s. I grew up in rural South Jersey and PA and have lived and worked in Colorado, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Georgia, Rhode Island, Virginia, and also overseas while in the service.
4. Tell us about your family
My family were originally Swiss Anabaptists (Schmaltz), later German (Schmaltzhaffen/Schmaltzhaf), and later American (Smalser) beginning in 1837.
Betty’s forbearers were Dutch Lutherans and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, and she specializes in teaching math to special-needs students. We’ve been married for almost 30 years. Two living sons, one a software engineer and part-time musician/luthier and the youngest is a senior in HS when he isn’t working for me. We lost our middle son to cancer a couple decades ago. Betty assists in the shop, in homebuilding, and is presently restoring a 60’s-vintage Airstream trailer.
5. How do you earn a living, woodworking or other, any interesting previous occupations
I’ve worked either part of full time since the age of 12 or so when I began helping my uncles and father in a number of woodworking and building trades, and some flavor of wood has been at least a sideline since then. I began as a boat builder’s gofer, was trained as a forest and habitat biologist in college, and later as a gunsmith and stock maker. I’ve restored antique furniture, reproduced it in various styles, and conserved/restored antique firearms for museums in addition to restoring and building traditional wooden boats. I can consult on forestry, land and habitat management, and I grow, harvest and mill my own wood. Custom sawyering alone could easily be a full-time job if I let it, and I often turn down work to maintain the variety of jobs I prefer. A near-term, 5-year goal is to complete a custom, 2500sf Victorian home using woods entirely harvested from the building site and adjacent forest, to include doors and cabinets.
6. Equipment overview (hand tools and other)
Like my Mennonite forbearers, austere. I don’t believe in owning tools I don’t use regularly, although I probably own more than twice as many hand tools as the men who taught me. How few tools those old professionals owned would shock today’s woodworkers. But I don’t need much. A basic 10” contractor’s saw, a 6” jointer, a 12” planer, a 14” band saw, a 12X36” lathe, with assorted tailed and hand tools. In hand tools, I like prewar, and I like inexpensive. I can make it work.
7. Describe your shop
Sheds and tents until I get the home up, then the basement will be the shop and I’ll build a proper boat barn after we move in.
8. Tell us about the hand planes you own, and your favorite one(s) to use
Mostly Stanley and various hand-me-down woodies. They all work to suit my purpose, and I don’t have any favorites. Sweetheart models generally take less work to bring up to speed, and the old woodies remain the most versatile.
9. You favorite chisels
I’ve come to prefer Witherby and Swan as the best compromise between edge holding and ease of sharpening. But there are other prewar chisels their equal, just not as consistently. Of the new ones I got to play with courtesy of FWW and Joel Moskowitz, I liked the Ashley Iles bench chisels a lot.
10. Your favorite handsaw(s)
Disston 12’s and 16’s….the 16 being a sleeper. Nobody today makes a hand saws their equal. In back, dovetail and specialty saws I have shop-made frame saws, Disston back and dovetail saws, modern pull saws, and an odd, old prewar no-name dovetail saw that outcuts them all.
11. Do you use western tools or Japanese, why do you prefer the ones you use
I’ve owned and enjoyed Japanese tools, but generally prefer western tools because that’s what I grew up using.
12. Do you have a woodworking home page
As it’s a value I was teethed on, my writing concentrates on teaching…these are all chapters in a future book for my boys:
http://www.woodcentral.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl#smalser
13. Do you have any influences in your work? Certain styles or designers you follow/prefer
I rarely do original work. One reason is that creativity isn’t one of my gifts. The other is I don’t believe you can often top 900 years of trial and error, and are usually wasting time trying…either your time now, or in joinery, the person who has to restore your work some day. I can and do copy anything, however, and prefer restrained Victorian furniture and design, as it lends itself to efficient and artful machine and hand tool use. Also any wooden boat designed by any Herreshoff or most timeless traditional boats drawn by Chapelle or Gardner. I’m biologically programmed to like curves.
14. Do you have any ancestors who were woodworkers that served as inspiration
Uncle Paul’s dad was a carriage maker who encouraged his son to switch to wooden boats, as carriage making was becoming auto body work. Paul built boats out of an austere shop and marine railway in New Gretna, NJ from 1920 until just before he died around 1990. To make ends meet, he sold hardware on the road in winter and conserved antique furniture for various Philadelphia-area museums. I have many of his tools.
Uncle Howard was a finish carpenter and home builder based out of the family farm in Lackawanna County, PA. Howard could build just about anything using fewer tools than Uncle Paul owned. He owned and drove school busses in winter to make ends meet, and also did custom welding.
Uncle Merle was Howard’s older brother, who managed a large wood lot in addition to the truck farm and greenhouse operation, bringing in custom sawyers to supply the family with wood. Merle retained a work horse for his strawberry fields throughout my childhood.
Granddad was a farmer, excavation contractor (using draft horses) and stone mason based on the family farm in Wyoming County, PA. He died when I was a youngster in the late 1950’s, but I remember helping him in one of his last masonry projects. My Dad left the farm during the Depression to provide cash as a journeyman, the farm eventually failed, and he wound up as a shipwright in Philadelphia during and after WWII. More men who could do almost anything with their hands, and I also have many of their tools.
15. What is your favorite neander project, or part of a project, you have ever done and why
If the goal is skill in woodworking, I’m not much of a believer in “Neander” projects, except for maybe one or two early on to develop basic skills. Unless you just like to plane and saw for exercise, the time spent in grunt work once left to apprentices isn’t being spent developing higher-order skills.
16. Do you believe there is any spiritual dimension to woodworking with hand tools
I believe in the spiritual dimension of a life well found in family, well found in hard work, and well found in passing on values and skills.
17. How much of your work is done by hand tools. Do you use whatever is best for the job or do you use hand tools even when they are less efficient
Boatbuilding is one of the last refuges of modern hand tool use because the work piece can’t be moved to the machine and many angles are too complicated for any other tool. I much prefer them, mostly because of the quiet, but I won’t sacrifice efficiency for it. There simply isn’t enough time.
18. What is your single most favorite tool, and why
Probably the brace. No tool is as versatile. Or timely.
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Originally Posted by Zahid Naqvi
