After a few posts and looking around, this is definitely a place I want to hang my hat for quite a while.
I've been a hand tool fan for years. I have asthma, and I can't breath with all that saw dust flying around, and using Respirators is no fun. I'm crowding 50, and I grew up with two uncles who were old school carpenters. The one uncle was like a grandpa that I never had and he grew up in the teens and twenties using those old antique tools. He taught me to use a hand saw, a 'brace and bit' and some of the other tools of the carpenter. I can remember job sites where he and one or two other old carpenters would be working using hand saws, hammers, chisels and planes to build homes or room editions.
Most of my experince is from doing framing and rough carpentry. I grew up working occasionally with a couple of old carpenters (besides my uncle) with whom I replaced roofs using the old shingle hatchets and roofing hammers. Cutting 2x4's with crosscut and rip saws, trimming the edge real quick with a jack plane and then join 'em with a few hard whacks from a framing hammer.
Growing older, I did a couple of small rehabs. That involved drywall and redoing old wood plank floors, and working around lathe and plaster.
It's been a few years since doing that sort of work and the hands grow restless. I have a couple of kids that have lots of talent in their hands and an itch to see what they can make. So, it's time to turn time and talents to other wood projects, like furniture and boxes. Which means that I need to add a few tools to the cabinet. I need a handful of good planes, a good dovetail/panel saw and the rest I'll add as projects show up.
I had a fun time this last week working on teaching my 11 y/o son how to use a saw. It wasn't as easy as he thought it would be! Anyway, I'm a pretty basic sort. A Workmate bench, a couple of sawhorses with adjustable legs, a shady spot to work on a sunny day and I'm happy. I have a lot of learning to do to achieve anything like some of the projects I've seen on this forum, but I figure it'll be an enjoyable journey.
Anyway, that's who I am....