How neglectful I have been

So the weather has been unbelievably nice in my little shore line town and I have used almost every second to be outside. Unfortunately most of that outside time has been for maintenance of the homestead. Fixing rotted wood with dutchmen inserts, sanding the crap out of everything, painting with super paints and fighting back the natural forces of vegetation that wants to take back my lawn and yard.

I have not lost focus I have just refocused in the war against decay and the not so slow process of the reversion to nature. Our home was starting to look a bit tattered on the outside and the winter had accelerated some aging. I am just now coming up for air and thought it would be fun to look at some of the "shop" made treasures that have crossed my path. 

By calling them shop-made it should be assumed that we are talking about wood shop - the class that you went to in middle school or junior high during the 60s. They call it industrial arts now but we just called it shop. Certainly a lot has changed since then - we have all seen the maker people/machines, CAD, CAM and other computerized rigs that some of the better schools teach today.  Surely those that are in my age group would definitely feel out of place in the "shop" class of today.

Right this minute I wish that there were some photos of my old shop class. You can be assured that no one would allow their kids to attend shop if they saw the tools that we had running in the class. I guess that there were just less lawyers back then or maybe we taught our kids differently then or maybe we were just stupid - we can only speculate. Today everything has a mechanical safety and the user in many cases need to depress additional controls to energize any power equipment that has the potential to hurt the user. Todays shop has become very protective of the students and their appendages.

 A shot of a 1913 wood shop class in the US. Notice the emphasis on cabinetry bench and no visible power tools. Perhaps they actually learned how to read a ruler and got some carpentry math skills. You can bet they did not get jammed up with metric conversions in 1913. Aren't we all a little broken from the attempted metric conversion that took place during in the late 60s and early 70s? Does anyone in the US in the carpentry trade actually use metric now? Not digressing too far but the US is one of three countries in the world that did not adapt the metric system. The others are Burma and Liberia - go figure Metric system wiki data.

All I could find in the vintage of my school time was a 1952 shot of a metal ship with students around a large lathe used for metal turning. My point is communicated here as you see no safety cages but you do see what looks like a lab coated instructor just like what I remembered. 

Well anyway, we had open blades - spinning and streaming. We had joint planers and real hammers. When you wanted to use a piece of power equipment you just turned it on and leaned in. Safety was provided by your wits and the shop teacher that kept us all in line.

Our shop teacher was a wiry little man with only 9 full fingers. He wore thick, horn rimmed safety glasses that might have stopped a bullet judging by their thickness. He never wore anything loose fitting and his jump suit was faded blue with his name above the pocket that held his pocket protector. 
Although small in stature, he was a powerful man and he took no crap from anyone. He was also quick to verbally put you in line with a bit more honesty and verbal force than that we consider politically correct in todays world. He was kind of like a prison guard that was paid to keep us from loosing body parts while we delivered a "wishing well pump the water to light it" lamp or a "pull the tail of the horse to light it" lamp.  Pretty complicated stuff for a bunch of kids just graduating from cub scout with a rapidly diminishing attention span.

That kind of describes our shop experience but one can only imagine how "tough" you had to be in the shop classes of the early nineteen hundreds or the pre-war nineteen thirties - where some of the stuff photographed here was from.

 This sail boat shelf was not signed but I estimate that it was made in the thirties or early forties. You can see that it is very crafty and a bit off kilter. It also might have been a summer camp project. It does suggest motion and the lines are saying Deco to me. I really liked it so I grabbed it at a flea market right here in Connecticut.

The canoe tie rack is signed and dated. I was surprised to see a date of 1918 on this little pine beauty. It apparently screwed to the wall and held belts or ties. I am sure that it was on the back of a door for a long time before it was snatched off to a yard sale. I really love the paint job that makes the canoe look kind of scary.

The finish on each of these pieces are a testament to lead paint and oil based finishes. Take a look at something that was finished in Latex in 80 or 100 years - good luck.