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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BillM" data-source="post: 4083280" data-attributes="member: 45785">I started photography as a new hobby in late 1972 or early 1973, found an Instamatic camera that had gotten run over in the street. Fixed it. Took a class in high school in photography, as well as my 1st machine shop class. A couple years in to my Air Force career, wound up working as a photographer for the USAF. Ruined a perfectly good hobby! Aircraft accidents and autopsies, sometimes including friends of mine. A child abuse case. Other nifty **** like that. Did take a woodworking class my junior year of high school, made some fairly neat stuff out of wood from the scrap bin, but the only thing the family could afford to buy for my shop project was a half-sheet of 1/4" plywood. Made a pigeon-hole sorter cabinet, and Dad still had it and used it what last I was "home" 20-some years ago. Much as I like guns, and wanted/want to be a gunsmith, you'd think I'd have pursued that some more, but no. I self-identify as a wood butcher. Rough carpenter. Very rough! Did lapidary and jewelry metal work a bit, still own a Lortone LU-6 combination lapidary unit. It's one of the things that's still under restoration in my shop... Spent much of the past 40 years in storage under poor conditions. The newer ones have stainless steel shafts, but they're not interchangeable with my vintage 1978 machine. Needs new bearings, too. A lot of my lapidary material was stolen from storage, oh, must be 10 years or so ago now. Had pieces of jade, some hand tools, a longish dagger blade, vegetable ivory, and rhodonite my dad collected in Colorado near his home. Made rings from castings, never quite got to making my own jewelry castings. Made a Baronial coronet for the SCA group we belonged to in South Carolina before going to Germany in the 90's, and took our son along once he was born in Germany, but pretty much dropped out after the 2nd child was born. I do my own mechanical work as much as possible. And I collect tools for all the kinds of work I've ever done, or ever hope to do. Been carting a 128lb London-pattern anvil since 1985, when I traded a 1911 with the Ace conversion kit to my dad for it. I happen to know he paid $5 for it in 1971 or so. There are a lot of memories in that anvil. I've had the material to make a brake-drum forge for a couple of decades, at least. Was going to set up a smithy under the huge tree in my back yard, but we're just too close to the neighbors for that to avoid noise complaints. Sometime in the past 10 years or so, I bought a leg vise to accompany them... And suddenly, I'm 68 years old, and about to run out of time. Dad made it to 77, despite heavy alcohol and tobacco use, and I'm not all that fond of either. It's possible that I could be good for another 20 or 30 years. Though he had about 1 heart attack a year for most of the last 22 years of his life, and I'm 18 years older than he was when he had his first. Haven't had one yet, myself, but the family history indicate I probably will. That or cancer. All four grandparents died from heart troubles, thought often with lots of complications. Parents died of heart trouble and cancer. I've been stacking on the complications for a while now, myself, no telling, really. SWMBO is a decade younger, and makes me look like I'm in great health. I have enough projects piled up here to last me as long as I last, and my kids can either learn how to use the stuff, or sell it for pennies per pound. Won't be my problem anymore. <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" alt="😁" title="😁" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f601.png" /></blockquote>

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