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Thread: How old are you and are you passing on a woodworking legacy?

  1. #46
    Darcy,good luck to your daughter on getting a moulder job. As knife grinding has gotten easier the product has suffered and the machines are being abused and replaced at a much faster rate. If she will resist the path of deciding that some procedures and maintenance practices "ain't neccesary" she will have her choice of employments and the best reputation around.

  2. #47
    49, I started my 12 year old daughter on the lathe at 10 as I was taught. I also teach Industrial Education (very skill development oriented) at the same school that I attended where my dad taught. I just went back to teaching after fifteen years of owning my own business as a general contractor.

  3. #48
    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Fitzgerald View Post
    Jon,

    There could be a revival too! Take music, for example. Today it was announced that Sony was going to start stamping out vinyl records again. Who knows?

    The ONLY 2 things guaranteed in life.....death and change.......from the moment you are born.
    The quote actually goes "there are only two things that are guaranteed in life, death and taxes." My experience is that is absolutely true, "change" does happen but when you see the same things in a slightly different wrapper come around every decade or three and then predictably leave, actual durable change is not that common. If you said "death and fads," I would 100% agree with you. Otherwise, wouldn't we be simply getting our projects made by a Star Trek replicator or at the very least, using computer controlled laser beams instead of 1800s technology circular saw blades and motors to cut our wood?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jon Grider View Post
    Well this thread confirms my thoughts that there is a high percentage of us curmudgeons here. It is nice that a few of our offspring have an interest in woodworking and that some of the younger members are passing on their knowledge to their kids. Perhaps woodworking will follow the path of film photography with technology changing the landscape for the majority. Maybe a remnant of old school woodworkers that use band saws,lathes, and hand tools will survive just like a small group of die hard film users have survived with their Leica's and medium and large format cameras. Thanks to all who replied.
    Photography is really an art. Digital photography fortunately brought SLRs from unaffordable to buy and operate in the film days to a price point where someone who is interested can pretty easily get an okay enough camera and get into the field. A guy with an entry level crop sensor camera and a nifty fifty but some talent can easily take better looking pictures than a guy with a five figure medium format camera and many thousands of dollars in lenses but minimal artistic talent. I would say unlike woodworking, photography is *much more* popular today vs. back in the day. Woodworking requires some art but considerable skill and usually a considerable investment in equipment and shop space.

  4. #49
    Join Date
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    I am the oldest so far.

    I plan on making 90.

  5. #50
    Quote Originally Posted by Mel Fulks View Post
    Darcy,good luck to your daughter on getting a moulder job. As knife grinding has gotten easier the product has suffered and the machines are being abused and replaced at a much faster rate. If she will resist the path of deciding that some procedures and maintenance practices "ain't neccesary" she will have her choice of employments and the best reputation around.
    She is only 11, very eager to learn.
    She has taken over crating machines for me this summer.

  6. #51
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
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    Salisbury, NC
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    45 here, my brother at 48 years is also a woodworker and was really digging playing on my lathe last time he visited too. My wife and I don't have any kids but my brothers son and daughter have both shown some interest, the daughter more than the son last time me and my brother talked about it.

    I'm just going to say here that I haven't read through the whole thread so this is just my take on it without having seen what others might have said after the second or third page. But, actually from reading around alot of forums and Facebook groups for a decade or better I have the impression that woodworking generally and more specifically hand tool woodworking are making a kind of come back. A Facebook group specifically aimed at hand tool woodworkers (Galoots, Neanderthals, unplugged woodworkers) that I've been reading for several years now has had a controlled explosion of new people and activity in the last year or two, from about 350-400 people 3 years ago to over 14000 now. Which is great and has been enlightening and amusing in a lot of different ways. Other than the fact that the price of good quality, used hand tools have spiked up in a pretty huge way, I think it's a great sign for the woodworking world in general. And if you look at some of the woodworking literature, both in books and magazines out there from Mortise and Tenon magazine(I'm positive I just spelled that wrong but I'm tired) and Lost Art press just for a couple of examples, there's a pretty huge amount of interest. I think we can be fairly sure woodworking as a hobby and even as a vocation isn't going anywhere real soon. Take heart wood butchers, I think we're solid.

    Jon

  7. #52
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
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    Southern California
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    I am 46 years old, fairly new to woodworking, but have build some outdoor furniture. Been a home handy man most of my life. Can fix a lot of things around the house. My 12 year old son loves the lathe and scroll saw. Even my 19 year old daughter likes to use the scroll saw. I like that they are interested in it. It keeps my son off the video games. Seeings how most high schools in California do not have shop class anymore, I try to get him in my shop so he can learn some life skills.

  8. #53
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    Sep 2013
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Fitzgerald View Post
    Today it was announced that Sony was going to start stamping out vinyl records again.
    I have a hard time understanding this.

  9. #54
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    Sep 2013
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    Quote Originally Posted by David T gray View Post
    i am young and like free things !
    I used to buy ash lumber from a farmer named David Gray. You don't live in Bowden, Georgia, do you ?

  10. #55
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    Feb 2017
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    I must be on the younger end of the spectrum here. Just 32, have 3 young children, oldest is five. They are too young too tell, but my oldest daughter seems to take an interest.

    I picked up wood working 3 years ago, independently of any friends and family, so I don't have much sentiment of passing on a tradition or anything like that. I enjoy it, and would be nice to share it with my kids when they get older if they are interested.

  11. #56
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
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    Duvall, WA
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    56 here and I started around 9 or 10, making boxes and birdhouses out of orange crates that my dad would bring home. My grandfather was the one with a shop and that's where I caught the bug from, and my first tool box. I took woodshop class in the 7th and 9th grades, and then life took a series of other turns until I was in my fourties. But I was doing home renovation and remodeling (as a sideline and not as a career) up until just 4 years ago. I have two daughters. The eldest got her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2013, with a focus on printmaking-stone lithography. She's stayed active in the art world, but more from an academic perspective than an entrepenurial one. About a year ago she took up a position as an assistant to a Seattle area sculptor, John Grade, working on a project of his titled, Middle Fork. The project involved about 4-6 months of cutting and then gluing short segments of cedar around a casting that had been made of a 140-year old Western Hemlock. Once glued, each segment of the pre-assembled tree structure had to be sanded largely by hand (mostly with ROSs). The finished piece is over 110 feet in length. I can't imagine a worse way to be introduced to woodworking--sanding for 6 to 8 hours a day for all that time, but she managed to catch the bug and is already working on another related project.
    Last edited by Mike Ontko; 07-02-2017 at 1:07 AM.

  12. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by lowell holmes View Post
    I am the oldest so far.

    I plan on making 90.
    It's late and you are probably tired from wrestling a bear.....tomorrow you will reassess and say 100!

  13. #58
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Location
    Norfolk, UK
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    I'm 32, my son passed away last year.

    I have hope that if we are lucky enough to have another chance, my child will take it up - it seems to be genetic from my Mum's side. I don't have anything to do with my extended family, we've always lives thousands of kilometres apart - but my Mum's brothers all have wood shops or woodworking businesses, and my grandfather on her side was big into woodworking. It's been hard to get tools out of my hands every since I could hold them, be it wood or otherwise. My wife's side of the family are all technical hands on people too, father in law was an engineer and now a skilled fine art painter in his retirement. I'm an engineer - can't stop designing and building things!

  14. #59
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    Dec 2008
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    Quote Originally Posted by lowell holmes View Post
    It's not a legacy but I have four children that have rocked my grandchildren in chairs that I built.
    I have a grandson showing interest in woodworking, so who knows.

    I must be older than most of you and I just celebrated 81.
    All of my grandkids slept in cribs that I made. Lost a finger while making one.

  15. #60
    I'm 40. Started last year and went on a terror completing several projects. Slowing down because I realized I was spending more time in the shop than with my 9- and 7- year old. I figure I'll have plenty of time on my hands when the kids are all grown up. They show little interest in anything outside of iPads, etc.

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