cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My First Tools I bought my first power tool from a pawn shop when I was 15 years old. It was an old Black and Decker jigsaw that cost me 0. They threw in 3 blades with it. We didn't really have many tools or any sort of work space in my parents' house, so I appropriated the unfinished portion of the basement to convert into a workshop. The first thing I needed was a workbench. Lacking lumber, money with which to buy lumber or any means by which to transport it, anything made of wood that was not nailed to the floor was fair game for my predations. The first victim was my bed. A standard 'This End Up' number, it had a very sturdy pine headboard and foot board which were different heights but of identical width. Disassembling it, I turned each of those pieces sideways and nailed a series of old pine bookshelf planks across them as a work surface. I stabilized the whole thing with an 'X' bracing in the middle that was also made from pine shelving. I slept on the floor for the next 4 years. We did have an ancient Black and Decker drill, so I appropriated it quickly. I didn't have any clamps, so I made those myself out of old carriage bolts and scraps of wood. What I really wanted to do was to build electric guitars. Looking back on what I had to work with, it was a miracle that I managed to come up with even the crude instruments that I did. There was a very creditable-looking neck that I managed to carve from a discarded pine 2x4 that I found in the woods. Everything that I built was cobbled together from that sort of thing. My parents didn't know what to make of it all. They basically ceded that area of the basement to me but didn't offer much more support. I did get a tool box and a router for Christmas when I was 18, which was nice. But I think they really missed an opportunity. If you have a kid with an interest like that, who is literally making many of his own tools and sacrificing his bed to build a work bench, it's seems like a no-brainer to give him some support. I never had the proper nails, wood or tools that I really needed to get anywhere. It wasn't until years later when I got my own house that I was able to pursue woodworking and construction in a serious (if amateur) way. It's a shame to think of what I could have done with just a little bit of decent wood and a few inexpensive tools. I clearly showed a high aptitude for all things mechanical or wooden. Even back in second grade I would slap together little devices out of salvaged electric motors, light bulbs, batteries and the odd solar cell. I'm not calling myself some kind of mechanical savant or anything. But I showed interest and enough skill that it should have been encouraged. I wonder if the lack of support had anything to do with the idea that working with one's hands is discreditable? Until I was 13, we were a middle class family living in the DC suburbs, surrounded by people who earned their livings at desks (mostly at NSA, actually). Maybe they thought that encouraging me to fiddle with that sort of thing would amount to steering me towards a blue collar job? I dunno. But I do know for certain that the shit I picked up in shop class and from farting around with whatever tools I could get my hands on have ended up serving me a hell of a lot more in life than, say, math classes or social studies ever did. 17:38 - 2008-06-04 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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