Project Working

Vintage Woodies Is Slowly Growing

My second site, Vintage Woodies, is slowly growing. Last month I was able to post information I had gathered about Hollows and Rounds Planes and this morning I posted my first instalment about Bead Planes.

The biggest impediment to getting a handle on old wooden planes, or any other category of tools, for that matter, is the educational material available. I havent found one yet that didnt raise more questions than it answered. I think most authors write with their feet in their own shoes, and not their readers. As a result, they assume because they know something, all their readers do as well. Aww, duh? If I knew it, I wouldnt be reading your damned book.

The second issue is an inability to correlate content. Wow, do these books bounce around a lot. One minute their discussing Ovolos, and before you realize it, you just read two paragraphs discussing Ogees. Damn.

Then there are the illustrations. In the text, they will call a plane by its most common name, say, a Reverse Ogee. When you go off to find the illustration of it, it turns out to be labeled by its second name, a Back Ogee. What the hell...

I shouldnt complain, should I? We all pay good money to read what these authors know while my knowledge is worth exactly what I get for it - nothing.

One thing did surprise me, though. After finishing posting for the day, I checked Vintage Woodies stats. For the limited information available, there seems to be a considerable amount of interest. It would appear that over 2,000 woodworkers visited the site last month, with almost as many dropping by so far this month.

The one thing that doesnt surprise me, however, is out of the thousands that have taken advantage of the work posted, not one has contributed a word for its content. It would appear Im on my own with this one.

Peace,

Mitchell