A shot looking into the entrance of the shop. It looks like a cave here because of the flash but the shop was actually well lit for work.
Somewhere in the Mid-Atlantic region is an unremarkable suburban house on an out-of-the-way lane that once held a remarkable shop. My buddy Steve and I first heard of the place from a local tool dealer. It seems that the elderly patternmaker had decided, with some prodding from his SWMBO, to divest the bulk of his tools, particularly the large number that he had attached to his shop walls and ceiling. He had retired 20 years ago and taken up a life of carving birds and accumulating old tools, which frankly sounded like a pretty good life to me. Our friend had gone over the place pretty well before we got there but we went with the expectation that we would still find something for our shops. The tool dealer told us that we just had to see the place before all of the tools were removed and taken to auction. So Steve and I drove over there one weekday afternoon a couple of years ago.
When we first saw the basement we just couldn't assimilate it. The gentleman spent 20 post-retirement years buying tools and evidently never saw an auction box lot that he didn't like and THEN spent hours and hours screwing the contents of these boxes to his walls and ceilings. We wandered around in shock, gazing up at the ceiling while repeatedly muttering "Oh.. My.. God." I went back on the following Saturday when some of the elderly couple's friends stopped by to see how things were going. I remember the reaction of one of the women as she gazed at the shop. She was stunned, uttering, "I had NO idea" over and over. Heh, heh. Oh yes, you think you know someone but then you see something like this and realize that the person had a whole corner of his personality that you never suspected. Yes, your old friend's husband was not only carving birds down there in the basement, he was creating a tool junkie's shrine, an Eighth Wonder Of The Tool Using World and, by his own admission, consuming about 50 boxes of screws in the process.
I found some brass patternmaker's shaves, low-angle and regular knuckle-cap block planes, a Fray Spoffard pattern brace, an older Jackson dovetail saw with an open handle and split nuts and center bits, etc.. I asked if I could take some pictures for my web site and the patternmaker said sure, go ahead. I took these pictures before too much had been removed from the walls and ceilings. The now deceased patternmaker's friends and family have had a couple of years to remove the tools and send them off to auction so I expect it has reverted to a normal basement. Nothing lasts forever...
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A shot looking into the entrance of the shop. It looks like a cave here because of the flash but the shop was actually well lit for work. |
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A shot looking into one corner of the shop over the main work area. The patternmaker attached tools to all of the fronts of his storage boxes. |
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Yet more shop. If you put your mind to it, you too could encrust every vertical surface in your shop with tools. |
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Another shot looking into the main work area. The visual overload was overwhelming - Steve and I spent hours just scanning small areas of the walls and ceiling for tools to fit our particular needs. |
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The ceiling looking back out of the shop entrance. The patternmaker estimated that he had about 400 drawknives. I found a real nice little 6" Pexto knife that was still quite sharp. I cut my hand on it. Yep. |
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One last ceiling shot. There were a a variety of tools up there but not in any discernible pattern or order. The intent seemed to be to fill the spaces. |
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Some of the patternmakers's recent output - a flock of blue jays, nicely done, I thought. |
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The birds - silent witnesses to a vast array of tools. |
I went back there the following morning for a couple of hours and went over the place with a fine tooth comb looking for small drawknives and anything else on my wish list. I found a nice 6" Pexto but that was the only small drawknife in good condition. Many 7" or larger drawknives were still stuck up on the ceiling and there was a fairly nice 8" James Swan that I left in a box. I've got 7" and 8" Witherby's as my users and was low on cash. I found a nice Goodell-Pratt eggbeater drill and some odds n' ends.
Don't ask me where the place is, it's over. The patternmaker's family were busy removing tools for an auction; several of the local Galooterati spent hours in the shop combing it for anything collectible or of use to the hand tool woodworker. Many local contractors swooped down and made off with the all of the power tools.
The patternmaker's SWMBO was in the inner shop while I was looking around and I caught some undercurrents of long suppressed SWMBO Exasperation Syndrome (SES) coming to the surface. Heh, heh. A few more tools up on the ceiling and I think he could have ended up living in a Van Down By The River.
