First of all I hate neckties my picture notwithstanding!

I was born in 1943. Both my father & grandfather were woodworkers. For a number of years, my father, Norman,  was a lofts man in a shipyard in the Pacific Northwest.  He could measure a boat hull with a level, a straight stick and a tape measure, and then duplicate it.  My grandfather, Nels, was a logger and a blacksmith.  I remember him sitting by the kitchen wood stove making dovetail wooden boxes (some with arched tops) using only a jack-knife. ​

Needless to say, I learned a lot about woodworking from each of them.  I have been a woodworker for over fifty years and have increased my skills mostly by learning from my mistakes.  I started out after high school as a machinist and a welder, then graduated into machinery design where I worked for about thirty-five years, mostly in the food industry.  I eventually owned my own company, designing food processing equipment for the fishery industry. I ultimately sold the business and went to work for the new owners, still designing food processing machinery.  We worked with robotics, optical scanning and high pressure water jet cutting (up to 60,000 psi). The company, over a number of years has become quite successful.

I retired in 2004 and my first project was to design a house from ideas found in a 1917 Sears kit house catalog.  It took about four years to complete the construction and along the way, we had some contractors thinking they were remodeling an old house.  After completing our home, I have spent a lot of time furnishing it with reproductions of Arts and Crafts furniture and artwork. 

​I purchased an old South Bend metal turning lathe and a small milling machine along with some sheet metal equipment and, in recent years, have been incorporating metal components into some of the furniture I make.

A few years ago, I became interested in knife making.  I started by buying ready-made knife blanks and modified them to suit, then making the guards and handles. I have recently started making them from old files, lawnmower blades and from heat treatable flat stock.  I built a 2" x 72" belt sander mostly of plywood, to do all the shaping and cut the bevels on the blades. I now have over a hundred knives in my collection in addition to the ones I have given to my grandsons.

​I have also built a few black powder firearms.  These have been mostly been made from kits but modified a bit to suit the look I was going for.  My latest adventure is gun stock carving.  I am still in the learning stage and haven't ventured further than my own gun stocks. 

​I will wrap up by saying I am in my shop almost every day and I think any day I don't design or build something is a day wasted.

​Thanks for stopping by and seeing some of my work.

Andy