John,
I started early with Audel's as well. I now have three versions. My
favorite for many years was a book I bought in 1969 by Herbert Edlin, What
Wood is That, with 40 actual samples of wood specimens in the book. I was
mostly used to home grown Vermont timbers, but had seen Bubinga or Lignum
Vitae used by some, but, Circassian Walnut, Paldao or Iroko? Holy shit!
And then when I finally got to California and saw what our west coast
brothers were creating, I was blown away.
Have Hammer will Travel.
Best,
Leland
Leland R. S. Torrence
Leland Torrence Enterprises and the Guild
17 Vernon Court, Woodbridge, CT 06525
Office: 203-397-8505
Fax: 203-389-7516
Mobile: 203-981-4004
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
www.LelandTorrenceEnterprises.com
-----Original Message-----
From: plz practice conservation of histo presto eye blinks
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Leeke
Sent: Friday, December 28, 2007 12:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [BP] Thurston's Dept. Store, Octavius, NY
Perhaps the most influential "library" in my early life was the book
shelf over the workbench. There were a few more than a dozen books there.
For those of you who have not heard the story:
I grew up in my father's woodworking shop and had my own bench by the
time I was ten years old. Occasionally I had questions he could not
answer right off. I can picture it now, as he would reach up over my
shoulder to the bookshelf above the bench saying, "let's just check
Audels on that." Audel's Carpenter's and Builder's Guide is a set of
books that he had bought in 1923 when he was just starting in the
trades. The small tool-box-sized volumes had a weighty heft that
suggested the extensive woodworking information compacted on their thin
pages. Gold embossed sub-titles like Cornice Work, Saw Troubles and
Piazza Details, sparkled on the spines like gems--just a hint of the
treasury in woodworking knowledge to be discovered within.
On the black leather cover was embossed an emblem, not in gold, but very
subtle, barely noticeable: a hammer floating over the sunrise. My dad
would take my hand in his and guide my fingers to touch and slide over
the emblem and ask, "Where do we seek knowledge?" I reply, "In the
east." He asks "What is the carpenter's tool?" "The hammer." --all very
mysterious, I didn't get it right away, thinking, "let's just look up
the answer, here's the index right here." Then he would say, "Yes, in
the east, at the beginning," as he opened Audels up to the title page.
At the top of the title page was printed:
"by hammer and hand all things do stand"
So, every time we looked up in Audels, my dad would begin by reading the
motto there, "by hammer and hand all things do stand." Well, after a
couple years I knew the ritual by heart and by the time his hand was up
to the book on the shelf I could cut to the quick with: "begin in the
east, by hammer and hand all things to stand." When I was thirteen I had
arrived at that place in the east where the sun begins to rise, and I
began making rather realistic pencil drawings and my dad said, "anyone
who can draw like that becomes the woodcarver of the shop." I was used
to doing what my dad told me to do, so I did become the woodcarver and
when I was fifteen I carved a crest out of white oak for a fraternity
down at the university. It was acclaimed by the client and by my dad as
a "great work." I adapted and adopted the Audels motto as my own:
"By Hammer and Hand Great Works Do Stand"
Since then it has been my personal motto. Later, during some scholarly
research, I was cut back down a notch when I "discovered" that the New
York Mechanick Society had:
"By Hammer & Hand all Arts do Stand"
as their motto in the eighteenth century. In the mid-1990s I was
contacted by a member of the still operating New York Mechanics Society,
who wanted to know if I had permission to use their motto. I told him my
story and he gave me permission to use my version of the motto.
As writing became a way for me to share what I know about old buildings,
I added;
"By Pen and Thought Best Words are Wrought"
still under the influence of that tiny "library" on the shelf, over the
bench,
John
hammer and hand
pen and thought
--
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