Craftsman / Artist
Bourgeois Guitars ◊ Lewiston, Maine
Jeff Looker had turned his retirement plan into a destination instrument shop. Hundreds of high-end acoustic guitars. Santa Cruz! Collings! Half a dozen Martin Custom Shop 000’s. A chance visit with this rare grouping kept me repeatedly occupied.
Humbly I ask Dana Bourgeois to forgive my inattention to his guitars. Not until the seventh or eighth visit did I try a Bourgeois. A simple mahogany OM short scale with Sitka spruce top. The package of options Bourgeois calls their Country Boy*. I was holding a Bourgeois Country Boy OM Short Scale.
Wow! Where have you been my whole life, darlin’?
Giddy with anticipation, the OM begins playing as soon as my hand rests upon the fingerboard. My reaction, with no hyperbole nor financial compensation: This is the finest mahogany guitar I have ever played!
“That isn’t me. What kind of trick is this?” Looking down, I’m astonished to see the guitar nearly playing itself, my fingers immediately at home on this newly met field of frets. I lean back, enjoy the music, and listen to a perfect guitar.
Country Boy sports a complete sound. Absolute balance across the spectrum. Not cocky, but confident. The tone mature, captivating. Clearly not a production-line product but a construction lovingly born of faith and imagination.
More description? OK, try this: Punchy midsection. Perfect intonation. Powerful resonance. No mud, conspicuously lacking in the usual trouble area, midrange chords up the neck. The guitar is full & open. Again, it makes me play far better than usual. My fingers move across fretboard as thought listening to someone else.
Even light groups of notes up the neck on the lower strings resonate perfectly with nary a misplaced overtone. Country Boy has soul, a perfect transcendental musical experience.
After two visits with Country Boy, I am a believer. Jeff also stocks the Adirondack top Country Boy OM, but the Sitka is the one which talks to me with gracious warmth, forever my friend.
* When Ricky Skaggs suggested the name “Country Boy” for our mahogany dreadnought, we all fell on the floor. We still wonder where he got such a great idea for a name! Admittedly, depending on which Body Style is used with this traditional combination of spruce and mahogany, you can get pretty far removed from anything remotely “country” in look and sound. Over the years we have considered changing the name but we can’t, it was a gift! – bourgeoisguitars.net
Bedell Guitars ◊ Bend, Oregon
AFTER HEARING ABOUT BEDELL guitars for a few years, occasionally hearing the guitar itself, always played proudly by it’s lucky owner, I finally got myself into one of the rare handful of dealers scattered across several continents. A little stonework brought me within a mile of “Arizona’s Premier Acoustic Music Shop”. Of course we speak of Acoustic Vibes Music.
Favoring a smaller guitar, perhaps a 000 with attractive wood, my eye and hand choose the Bedell Coffee House Parlor- Natural top. PLENTY of volume from this artistic meld of wood and metal. PERFECT fretboard under my fingers. Better balance than I would have guessed, perhaps the result of a 12-fret neck? The sound was deep and full. As melodies flowed from the lower strings, clear frequency response and rich sustain greeted me with every note. Higher tones punched through with life and vigor. With a Bedell like this, I’d be ready for quiet couch time, outdoor picking with the bluegrass circle, or the stage!
Adirondack Spruce with East Indian Rosewood. Ebony fretboard. Koa binding. Everything I want in an artisan-built guitar. Recently added to my short list.
From The Garden • michelle bross
Visiting one of my favorite buildings was a treat made extra special by an exhibit of mosaics. Juried and selected by The Mosaic Society of Philadelphia, their show made the library’s hallway entrance a long, considered walk, stopping for each piece. While every work is a winner, selected for this week’s ATB Art Exposé is From The Garden, by MichelleMosaics.
A collector among collectors, Michelle repeats a mantra I’ve heard among the best of the best – if something looks interesting, keep it. A use will find it’s way to you in time. “I love working with many different materials that have caught my interest, many collected long before I began mosaicing. I may have an idea 
about incorporating a piece immediately, or it may take months for its use to be apparent.”
From The Garden is included in the exhibit, “Fragments, Shards and Pieces: Images in Mosaic” at Bryn Mawr’s Ludington Library in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
photos link to larger images
images taken from michelle’s website & facebook
LITTLE CHAP • j. sergovic
Remember Pat Graham? Brickbat Book’s Benches? Showing Pat, decades ago, a small sculpture made from bits of castoff brass culled from discarded plumbing fixtures, he immediately named the piece Little Chap. Pat went further to suggest a whole series of Little Chap figures, made progressively larger. A project still in developmental stage.
The discarded plumbing fixtures were not sinks and toilets from the alley. These 19th century parts came from The Newport in Philadelphia. When indoor plumbing was a new thing, pieces that made up plumbing fixtures were designed to last generations. Sand-cast brass components, finished by a skilled hand. Engineering to allow decades of function with no maintenance.
The Newport was once the tallest building in Philadelphia. At five stories, the most luxurious residence available with indoor plumbing. Five story buildings remain common in older neighborhoods. Water will not flow higher without pumps. Height is limited by elevation of a reservoir. After pumps became widespread, The Newport went to nine stories. A century later, I was replacing someone’s tub drain.
Maintenance plumbing in older buildings gave me an appreciation for quality components of 
the late 1800s. Parts too nice to scrap were collected, shared, and occasionally refashioned into something new. Little Chap was assembled and shaped in a c.1905 garret apartment, on a door serving as a workbench. Year later a mold was made, wax copy produced, and Little Chap was cast in sterling silver. – jim s.
Danner
NOTHING LASTS FOREVER. Or does it? How long is forever? For me, it might be a few decades, it might not. Still, I usually buy sturdy multi-generational items.
To celebrate a milestone event my brother wanted to give me something special. He tossed out a few suggestions. Everything seemed “here today, gone tomorrow”. I had been eying a pair of American-made hiking boots. Perfect for the asphalt jungle; better for the Appalachian Trail.
Selected among the best boot available to the committed hiker. Born from the ideals of Charles Danner in the shock of the Depression, a commitment to superior craftsmanship that lives to this day. How sturdy are they? Friends gloat over their Danners, decades old, reminiscing over their trials and trails together. “Buy once, cry once”, they chant. Boots are available for half the price, but you get what you pay for.
The trouble with really comfortable shoes and boots is that they fall apart by the time they become your favorites. Several years ago I turned to recraftable loafers by Alden. When the shoe becomes worn, back to the factory they go, where they take it apart. Alden replaces worn components, puts it together, and ship it back, feeling “like your old shoes” but looking almost new.
Danner does the same thing. Just look for the word “recraftable”. This means you are buying a product designed to be repaired, not discarded. In a business climate of planned obsolescence, you’re seeing a product the manufacturer wants you to keep forever.
wayne henderson ◊ luthier
DRIVING HOME FROM A WINTER visit in Tempe Arizona takes me tantalizingly close to a famed luthier’s workshop. A few phone calls later, favors cashed, promises promised, I’m invited. The Holy Grail of both amateur and professional luthiers across the globe, an unscripted view of life in the shop of one of America’s greatest guitar builders.
When I drop in, Wayne is staining the neck of his latest acoustic, a little later, the body. This particular customer had plenty of time to find beautiful walnut sides and back Wayne would eventually build into a guitar. Typical wait time is ten years.
The visit was memorable. Organized clutter. Not a tape measure to be seen (I was assured they were occasionally consulted). A 23/1000″ saw blade just for cutting fingerboard fret slots. Many tools and jigs have one purpose only. Except the pocket knife. Wayne is a hand’s-on builder, and that blade is used for just about anything. Poking, prying, cutting, slicing, whittling, trimming.
You never know who will stop into the shop. This afternoon brought EmiSunshine, fresh off the Grand Ole Opry stage. She had us aflutter with her skills, the pictured ukulele built by Jayne Henderson. Jayne could not have a better teacher.
Wayne has had an interesting career. Retired after thirty-two years with USPS. Plus the year of accumulated sick time. An easy postal route that left him with plenty of time to build guitars, which he has been building his whole life. After the first one was sold at about 16 years of age, he’s had a continuous backlog. Don’t even ask how long. Methuselah himself is pressing his luck.
He covered all the bases, sticking with USPS and a performance career even though he could easily have gone over to full time guitar building years ago. And he covers all the bases in every guitar he builds, known for their volume, tone, and resonance. A strong, balanced sound is nothing you can fake.
What is Wayne holding up? He admires a sandstone sample I brought back from Anasazi Stone, comparing it’s layers to the pictured walnut end piece on the guitar he just built. Ahh, nature repeating itself.
Mariposa Slate • California
A YOUNG MAN WENT WEST. He found the work scene different from back east. Not so many taverns and restaurants, his typical clients. But Mariam was opening Savoury’s, on Main Street in Mariposa, California. Mariam wanted something different for her hostess station. Her ears perked right up at the mention of custom stone work. And she knew a local secret.
Mariposa Flagstone Co/Yosemite Slate Quarry. They had the goods. And just the right piece, a monster leaning against a tree, waiting for the right pockets to come along and buy it. The rest is history. Dragged it home in the Ford, made a template, dry-cut the stone with a diamond wheel on a Craftsman grinder, and dressed the edging.
Savory’s moved down the block a few years later. The stone was repurposed, as has happened since time immemorial.
jayne henderson • luthier
A young child sat beneath the work bench. She heard her dad humming, heard the scrape of a rasp across wood freshly released from clamps. Smells of maple and walnut and rosewood and glue. Shavings danced in the air, shimmering through beams of sun, dropping into her hideout like snow into a tree fort. When people hear Wayne’s daughter is now a successful luthier, they might picture it all started like this . . .
. . . it is not what happened. The real story? More “21st century” involving exorbitant college debt, an environmental law degree, a way out of debt learning a skill her father could teach her. In time, learning something about herself. She liked working with wood, creating the instrument. Hearing it sing at completion, having people find her efforts had value. Enough value to pay college bills. Enough for everything . . .
Watching Jayne work, it’s quickly apparent there is no “shadow” across her. She’s working side by side with her dad, famous luthier Wayne Henderson. If Jayne gets stuck, or has a question, sure is nice to have dad there to consult! And maybe someone to point out the hard way will make a better instrument?
Jayne specializes in exactly what I want, a smaller guitar (with a short scale, please). She uses premium materials. Her teacher, the finest in America. The shop, perfectly situated for consult with peers or to borrow a tool. The wait time, two years, manageable – everybody gets in line. Just like her dad, she makes every single component of the instrument herself, except the strings and tuners (are they next?).
“It sounds like a Henderson” – Doc Watson, December 14 2011
Yep, I could visit Acoustic Vibe and walk out with a Custom Shop Martin 000 or a beautiful Collings OM3 Short Scale. Would the sound or the price or the guitar be any different? I’d have a high-end guitar like a lot of other people. Or I could order an EJ Henderson and have something special. Love and patience and jokes and banter and memories; years of combined knowledge and skills, all rolled up in an inanimate object that . . . lives. Hey, if I can’t take delivery, after waiting two years, there is no pressure to buy. There’s a line. The next person will be offered the instrument. Am I trying to talk myself into placing an order?
Jayne Henderson links —> Facebook Blog Retail
EmiSunshine plays Jayne’s personal ukulele . . .
Note from AmericanToolbox: We began reading Jayne’s blog, The Luthier’s Apprentice, after her ATB entry was written and edited down to what you see here. We recommend her blog, which reads more like a history/diary. Start with the oldest. Read a few entries every night.
Anasazi Stone Co • Scottsdale AZ
ARIZONA! THE LAND OF milk and honey! Grapefruit big as bowling balls right off the backyard tree in mid-winter! The perfect time to visit friends & in-laws. Doing a few jobs will make one more even more welcome. And get you an invite back!
My friends, on a recent visit, told of a desire for a paved path to the back gate. Sure, paver “stepping stones” are easy. The home centers have shelves full of cast concrete fake stones. But if I was to be involved, the job had to have a certain artistic flair. Only real stone would work.
A few phone calls later landed me the address of the premier Arizona supplier of pavers. They own their own quarries and snap the stone on a secret proprietary press of which pictures are forbidden! I ordered a dozen pieces 16″ x 24″ x 2″. We chose buff/buckskin for the color. A few days later, Anasazi dropped a pallet in my GMC Sierra.
This was a fun job. Thirsty work, sure. Two grapefruit per hour, I figure. The stones weighed about 70 pounds (32 kg) each. Raked the gravel down to desert floor, spaced the stones, leveled them around roots, avoided irrigation lines. Put the gravel back. Jiggled and jostled them a bit more the next day, trying to achieve a natural feng shui to the project.
Anasazi Stone Company. Highly recommended!
Flagstone is a sedimentary rock that is split into layers along bedding planes. Flagstone is usually a form of a sandstone composed of feldspar and quartz and is arenaceous in grain size (0.16mm – 2mm in diameter). The material that binds flagstone is usually composed of silica, calcite, or iron oxide. The rock color usually comes from these cementing materials. Typical flagstone colors are red, blue, and buff, though exotic colors exist.
Flagstone is quarried in places with bedded sedimentary rocks with fissile bedding planes. Examples include Arizona flagstone and Pennsylvania Bluestone. – Anasazi Stone
Hand-Knitted Cashmere Watch Cap
ALL ACROSS AMERICA are American artisans. Working with metal, wood, and the most useful of all, textiles. Inspired by the Serpent. Or was it Eve? Wanting to accessorize with the apple, no doubt.
Amazing, the progress humanity has made in the last 2.6 million years. Global economies have introduced unlimited variety of materials to the practicing. About a years ago we visited the subject of the hand-woven watch cap, featuring Chinook Winds Bison Yarn and Fiber. This popular Montana supplier produced bison yarn knitted for me into a perfect sub-zero watch cap.
This time, Heather, the fabulous Iowan artisan renown for custom woven headgear, reached clear around the globe to return with a perfect cashmere yarn. This particular product is sourced from the western area of Inner Mongolia. A combination of very cold nights and hot days, coupled with living in a pristine, pollution-free, high altitude environment produce amazing cashmere goats with feathery soft down is how MinkYarn explains the quality. Indiana Jones got nothing on Heather!
And from Heather, herself: The cashmere used in your hat is a laceweight which refers to the thickness. Knitting it single stranded would have been much more time-consuming on tiny needles and would have produced a thinner fabric. Instead, I separated each of the two skeins in half and knit the four strands held together as if they were one. This resulted in a thicker, warmer, more durable product. Using a single rib for the brim gives a greater ability to stretch, and using a waffle-type stitch for the crown adds texture and warmth. (Think of the texture on the fabric for thermal wear, or long underwear.)
Quality isn’t cheap. But you’ll get exactly what you want. If you take care of it, you’ll enjoy the product for years and years. Hats by Heather. Special order only.
Oneida Porringer Candleholder
NOTHING SAYS, “HAPPY HOLIDAYS!” like a candle burning brightly on the mantle. The scented hand-dipped candle bought from an artisan on that lovely trip to Colonial Williamsburg. Or mass-produced Ikea candles, makes no difference. Well, a little, but regardless. Does a candle purify the air? Yes, it does. Air is drawn to the flame, and contaminants within the air are burned. And a burning candle looks nice. A candleholder completes the ambience.
Candleholders with a wide base for stability, room to catch fallen wax, and 
safely receive matches that may smolder still, these are traits one might desire. Just like a porringer. A recent quest for such a pair led us to the Cambridge Colonial line produced by Oneida.
Oneida? The company started in the mid-1800s, and which made at least half of all flatware purchased in the United States by 1980? Yep, same company. These mid-century pewter candleholders cost about ten bucks for the pair, but try to find a USA-made product of new production. Impossible! Garage-sales, online auctions, thrift stores! These are the battlegrounds on which we fight and win back heirlooms of American culture.
Vintage candlestick holders by Oneida – Great value!
Vintage Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar
YOU ALWAYS HEAR ABOUT the “Deal Of The Century”. The one that got away. The other guy got it. You should have been here yesterday! One cold Sunday, we showed up late to a yard sale. Everything had been picked through. But in answer to our questions, SURPRISE! The owner pulls a dusty plastic guitar case from behind a bush. Inside was what looked like the guitars we played in the ’80s. Except that the foam lining had degraded into sticky sludge. A colossal mess!
Neither of us knew what it was worth. I offered the most we could walk away from, if the electronics were fried. What if the decomposed foam lining could not be removed from the grain of the wood?
Hours of gentle cleaning with acetone, mild soap and water, steel wool, abrasive cloth, toothpicks, and Q-tips returned the gleam to this vintage treasure. New strings vibrated forth a tone one associates with guitars costing five times the price.
An ash body again captivating one’s eye. A maple neck ready for the musician’s caress, its high-crowned 18% nickel-silver frets practically new! Humbucker pickups, with their very high output, again ready to cancel out noise and deliver forth the song of the operator. Indeed, a rescued gem. Now passed on to a young buck, about to start a Mid-West tour . . . . American Toolbox again helps to fulfill The Dream . . .
S. Donald Stookey “Mr. CorningWare”
S. Donald Stookey 1915 – 2014
There does not exist within this great Republic of ours the kitchen absent of CorningWare. The most important invention to modern cooking, Stookey’s ballistic glass became the temperature-resistant material from which have been fashioned billions and billions of cooking, serving, and mixing articles.
Moving into new digs? A quick trip to the corner 5 & Dime will supply all the Pyrex your kitchen will need. And it has never been expensive. Just about as cheap as any glassware, but infinitely more durable!
Nestling bowls are my favorite. Whether creating pasta salad or reheating a Super Size Serving of chicken soup, Corning makes the item that works for both preparing and serving food. And drink! Here’s another favorite, which we wrote about a few months ago. A Pyrex® pitcher in the Eames tradition. Who knew glass could be both functional and stylish?
Mid-1990s Guild Guitars
TWO DECADES AGO, a man in his mid-30s went into a music store with a friend. They each bought a new Guild D4 dreadnought guitar. The dreadnought, so named by guitar manufacturer C. F. Martin & Co. in 1916, is a full-bodied guitar with a standard length neck. Perhaps the most commonly purchased model, these days.
Guild made their guitars in Westerly, Rhode Island at that time. The ’96 Guilds had magic in them. Something about the wood and craftsmanship produced instruments of unusual resonance and tone. Crisp and full of body with excellent projection. A clarity which rivals many $2,000 guitars of today.
The young man and his friend each practiced songs with which they grew up. The friend 
persevered while the young man set his guitar in a closet after a year. And it sat. And sat. Eventually the young man found himself in a large house with his pets but no furniture, no children, no wife. A middle 50’s man in divorce. Scraping for money, an ad was placed, the guitar listed for his buying price, and I showed up on his doorstep.
Even coated with grime, strings with little life, a neck out of adjustment, I heard promise in the guitar. There was something. Considering the cost of repairs and the risk I might be wrong, half his asking price was offered, and the guitar found a new home.
Several deep cleanings later with warm water, mild soap, and a damp, well-wrung cloth, with new strings and a straightened truss rod (to correct the neck), true tone burst forth. As it once did in 1996, in a music store in Northern Delaware, for an optimistic young man, this American Gem will inspire a new generation of musicians. And with care and luck, another beyond my years.
Mid-1990 Guild Guitars. Excellent value. Excellent tone.
EMERGE • darlys ewoldt
Emerge came into this writer’s possession directly from the artist during the Philadelphia Craft Show in the autumn of 1998. The acquisition was made as a motivational device, reminding me of a sculpture I doodled in the 1980s but never executed. While I may be forgiven my lack of progress only because it involved a car-sized piece of granite, serious stone-cutting tools, a studio, and a year unencumbered by responsibilities, I would be remiss if I did not document this fine sculpture and publish it’s journey.
From Chicago via Ms. Ewoldt, Emerge stayed in the Philadelphia region for 16 years. Very recently the sculpture has been gifted to a dear friend, to be featured in a private gallery in the Scottsdale area.
J-B WELD Epoxy Putty Kit
AFTER REMOVING THE 1920’s mortise lock, a gaping rectangular hole was evident in the door. The new Schlage locks, ordered and ready for install, would not install until this void could be addressed. Why? Because the extra drilling for modern locks would have turned the French door into a Swiss Cheese door. A lock installed in a compromised door helps no one but the unlawful. Never figured on the space left by the removed lock, but it was a temporary setback.
A bit of handyman-style investigative work came up with The Dutchman Patch. I cut a piece of wood to fit the space formerly occupied by the mortise lock, and glued it in with Liquid Nails.
Next, a prodigious amount of wood putty was mixed. Not your average putty in a can, but an epoxy-based two-part invention from J-B WELD. Exceptional stuff! It cured in a few hours, and I was ready for sanding! A little touching up, and the door now looks like it always had modern locks on it!
Midwest Products • Hobbyist Materials
THE OFFER WAS TOO GOOD to be true. A Made In The USA acoustic guitar, dreadnought-sized, was for sale. In exchange for a reasonably slim stack of crisp Yankee dollars one could own a genuine Guild D4, a treasure from the heartland of American Folklore. Yet something seemed amiss . . .
Ahh, it becomes apparent. It is the six-inch crack in the solid mahogany side of the guitar. An impact crack, fortunately, rather than that caused by heat or humidity. The wood can be buttoned up. We have the patience . . . the technology. The knowledge? Not yet. But a visit to Jake the Snake cleared all that up.
A little super glue to tack the edges together, then thin wood glued across the crack from the interior. How thin? 1/32″ of an inch, it turns out. Beatty Lumber Company will not get my business on this one.
Up the street, though, is an old-time hobby shop. I know, because I’ve passed it several times a week for the past 30 years. And it turns out . . . 1/32″ basswood is a stock item. They also had the right glue, Titebond.
Armed with a sheet of veneer hardwood from Northern Michigan’s forests, and domestic glue I’ve trusted in the past, I set about successfully repairing my USA-made Guild in just a couple of hours. The Circle Is Unbroken . . .
James Garner • 1928 ~ 2014
LOTS OF PEOPLE MY age grew up when Friday night meant Rockford on the television. All the kids would lay on the floor, with the adults upon the chairs and couches. Together, we would watch Jim get himself into a mess, and then connive and wriggle himself back out of it. And solve the case to boot, although payment for services rendered was often absent.
James Garner was more than Jim Rockford. His biggest accomplishment may have been his marriage, leaving Lois Fleishman Clarke Garner a widow less than a month before their 58th wedding anniversary . His driving skills with Formula One race cars in Grand Prix, a 1966 film, could have led to a successful racing career. Jim did his own stunts, which is particularly rough on one’s body.
I’ll remember Jim Garner as a guy who didn’t give up.
James Garner and Steve McQueen with director John Sturges on the set of The Great Escape, 1963
Alden Cordovan Loafers
Planned Obsolescence. The manufacturer’s credo. Just about the time a pair of shoes begin to feel perfect, they fall apart. Without need, there is no demand. The decision-making process to buy will not exist.
A sales position beckoned after an injury forced me to take a break from rigorous tradesman labors. The product formerly installed would now, through new skills taught by Sales Training Managers, be sold (by me) for others to install. I breezed through instruction, and two weeks later hit the pavement running. And running. And running. Until my dress shoes fell apart. The old adage, “Wanna be a success, start your day with a decent breakfast and a good shine on your shoes” was not quite working, with the upper detached from the sole. The other salesmen started calling me Flappy.
Decades of living finally produced one new thought. Shoes start to fall apart just when they begin to feel really comfortable. So began the decision-making process with me. I was to become a buyer of premium-quality shoes. The salesmen saw me coming!
I choose Alden of New England, shoes made since 1884 in Massachusetts. They are recraftable, a construction that is designed to allow rebuilding. Which I’ve done once so far; the shoes came back looking, literally, brand new. Most importantly, Alden is an American company that stands behind their work. When a bit of stitching came loose, I posted the shoes back to Alden with a note, and they came back repaired and shined up, no charge.
You get what you pay for. Premium shoes feel better on your feet, and, with care, will last for decades. Run the numbers and you’ll see, it is less expensive to buy quality.
Alden is now the only original New England shoe and bootmaker remaining of the hundreds who began so long ago. Still a family owned business, still carrying forward a tradition of quality genuine-welted shoemaking that is exceptional in every way.
Pennsylvania Blue Marble
Bizarre marine arthropods of the Cambrian Explosion roamed a vast sea which covered what is now Valley Forge National Park. Relax, we refer to events of 450 million years ago. Under this sea there formed a weakly metamorphosed calcite marble. Fa
st forward, to the early days of The Republic. This Pennsylvania Blue Marble became an important regional building stone in the first half of the nineteenth century.
One has but to tour older Philadelphia row home neighborhoods to see its extensive use as steps, window sills, lentils, and trim. Alas, structural decomposition, changing design tastes, and improved transportation systems increased availability of better quality white marbles from New England and Georgia. What becomes of the Pennsylvania marble as buildings are pulled down?
People like me collected steps and sills in nicer condition for garden use. Wear patterns tell the story of healthy, prosperous neighborhoods. Tool marks upon the ends aid
one in establishing production date, as methods of stone dressing evolved. The 350 pound steps were welcomed by friends and neighbors, as well. A unique pillar for the garden bird bath or flower-pot. And the sills make great bordering stones! Pictured is a local effort. These stones were pulled from houses under demolition within Philadelphia’s Fairmount section.
Hidden Gems of Old City – Part I
PAUL KEARSLEY, DIRECT descendant of mid-1700s builder & architect Dr. John Kearsley*, said to me a while back, “Hey, Woodman, what’s with the tile mosaic in the coffee shop bathroom?” We had just enjoyed a private tour of Christ Church, at one time the most sumptuous church in the colonies, as well as the tallest structure in North America. And now, down the street, we find ourselves in Old City Coffee, where he noted the dual tourist-friendly customer washrooms, one of which sported a cut-tile mosaic. While not exactly in the style of Isaiah Zagar, clearly there was an influence.
Zagar made a name for himself throughout the 1960s onward as the premier cracked-tile mosaic artist, covering vast areas with his images. This bathroom mosaic was different. The tile was cut and arranged into a private story, the interpretation being at the sole discretion of the viewer. The key word here is cut, as in sliced on a wet-saw. Someone put a lot of work into it.
When walking through the area years later, I noted a tasteful renovation had rendered the bathroom to an employees-only area. Thus, this mosaic qualifies for Hidden Treasure status. The creator is rumored to be a wanna-be-artist plumber.
*** Paul Kearsley’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granduncle was Dr. John Kearsley, the architect/builder of Christ Church. But, disappointingly, the Doctor didn’t get the commission for Independence Hall, narrowly losing out to a design by Edmund Woolley and Andrew Hamilton. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Hall
SANDOWN FORGE • Custom Knives
Felicità raggiunta, si cammina per te sul fil di lama
THE KNIFE IS the most important tool ever invented. Five of the 20 most important tools are derived from the knife (the chisel, the lathe, the saw, the scythe and the sword, in case you are testing your game show skills). Is it any wonder so many men choose to carry a pocket knife everywhere they go? How handy it is for cutting, prying, poking, and slicing.
An American knife maker came to my attention through his perfectly proportioned work; graceful blade, substantial handle, artistic mating of wood to metal. Although not a hunter, I could not resist doubling my collection of fine cutlery with the addition of this knife.
Why own a knife like this? If you ever go camping (not INSIDE the Franklin Institute with the Boy Scout Troop, mind you), a knife is the #1 tool you’d want to improve your site. This beauty from Sandown Forge features CM154 stainless steel heat treated to a Rockwell C hardness of 59. Bad a§§ hard! Go ahead and hack down the surrounding forest! You won’t hurt the knife. A hunter in the family, you say? This is the perfect belt accessory for wild pigs through bison. Gotta process the harvest for transport.
And for the gentleman philosopher, tilted back in his office chair after another nail-biting day on Wall Street? It’s a really well crafted knife, screaming QUALITY. Great for making your buddies jealous. A gentle reminder that it’s just a few steps from the trenches, knife in hand, fighting for your life.
1950’s American Craftsman Toolbox
TRIANGULAR properties left over after subdivision may be a burdensome possession to the developer. Fortunately, there exist the intrepid builder and amateur architect willing to take lemons and create meringue pie. Passing such a property regularly as I walk to the Post Office, one comes to appreciate, six decades ago, a young man’s vision to mate a six-sided home into a three-sided corner property.
In the mid-1950s, a young cabinetmaker, just married, built this house on newly subdivided farmland a ten minute walk from City Hall. His practice thrived. He lived there the remainder of his life. A decade after his
death, his house was being cleared out for the next occupant. Walking by, I struck up a conversation with the laborers, and was offered a glimpse into the basement workshop. All the tools had been passed to a younger generation. There remained, however, this nice box made by the cabinetmaker early in his career. Rather than allow the locking aluminum-clad craftsman’s toolbox a one-way trip to the rubbish hauler, I brought it home. At present, the box stands on it’s end by the corner of my living room, a pedestal to a flower-pot under a window.
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