About 35 years ago my shop was in a dirt floored shed that it shared with an assortment of wild animals that found the location ideal for their burrows. There was one rabbit that was the biggest I have ever seen, nicknamed "Samson". My first power tool was a 9" Craftsman radial arm saw (a present from my wife on our first married Christmas), followed by a 15" (dirt) floor model drill press. My first lathe was the 6" Atlas/Craftsman and I hardly knew what to do with it. I was building my own house at the time and the woodworking tools took precedence. "Get the baby's room done!" said my long-suffering wife. I guess she had something in mind with that previous Christmas' gift. Eventually I built a wooden floor over the dirt and things were a little more comfortable, but the animals were really really mad.

15 years later my shop moved to a 20'W x 36'L x 18'H plastic building with a wood floor. This one had a plywood floor on landscape timbers set on concrete blocks about 8" above grade. The shell was an opaque white plastic material like they use for greenhouses, stretched over an aluminum tubing pre-stressed frame. This shop had heat (solar + a wood stove) and 220 volt electricity. More wood-working tools found a home here. More work was done on the house and a few boats were built. The metal working shop stayed in the old shed and acquired a metal-cutting vertical bandsaw, a horizontal bandsaw, two Clausing mills, a 12" Atlas lathe, a 9" South Bend lathe, two Atlas metal shapers, some sheet metal forming equipment, and automatic LP gas heat. Talk about comfort in the New England winter!

Eventually the animals who were still mad at me about the old shed got their revenge and chewed holes in the plastic covering. Once the squirrels discovered the breach of integrity it was all over for that building. Pretty soon the roof leaked through their holes (Why isn't one hole enough? Why do they have to keep putting in holes two feet away from the previous?) So now I am restoring some of my woodworking tools to their previous restored condition. I did get 20 years out of the plastic building so I can't really complain.

After a two year break for both my wife and I to retire and then both become cancer "survivors", (what irony), in 2004 I had a new post and beam wood building erected, 24'W x 32'L x 23'H, with a concrete floor and a full height loft. This was built on the former site of the old Annisquam Granite Company railroad shops and is a restoration in itself. The building design is a very close replica of the original c.1890 AG shop building and will shortly be a registered historical site. And it really bothered me not to be able to do the work myself. Damn old age! I have combined both wood and metal shops into this one building, a compromise that is not totally successful. Space is at a premium and I am not much pleased with dealing with the dust issue between the two areas. On the other hand it's rodent proof, at least partially insulated, has its own electric meter, a big dehumidifier, and economical radiant LP gas heat, but no indoor plumbing. It's a fair walk to the house in bad weather and my arthritis doesn't much work well with that.

I prefer old American-built tools made with generous amounts of cast iron, built to be rebuilt when necessary, rather than discarded and replaced. Most of my woodworking machines are pre-'60's Delta, Powermatic, Atlas, or Craftsman. My metal working equipment is vintage Atlas, Clausing, Delta, South Bend, and Craftsman, some of them dating to the '30's. I like to buy tools by the pound of cast iron. Except for my 12" Atlas lathe and my Clausing vertical mill, all my tools were purchased used (read "cheap") and rebuilt. I wouldn't dare try that with older Asian machines. One notable exception to my buy-American philosophy is a Taiwanese Jet mill-drill that I converted to CNC. Oh yeah, I also have an elderly Hitachi planer/jointer that I rebuilt but it's Japanese and a cut above the other Asian machines.

I am in a long term personal project restoring the original Annisquam Granite Company Engine No. 4, a two cylinder Shay geared steam locomotive, officially named "Virginia" but affectionately known as "Ginny"; all the AG engines were named after Stornson family women. Captain Stornson was the founder and patriarch of the AG empire that existed from 1857 to 1927, with holdings in N. America and the Caribbean (primarily the Annisquam Granite Company and the Antilles Guano & Steam Dockyard Company). This lovely little engine had been sold to one of the Bond family logging operations but was found as derelict and purchased as scrap by my grandfather, Clifton Belknap, in 1936, rescuing it from the breaker's yard.

The restored AGC RR Shop building also houses my collection of vintage column drill presses and AG railroad artifacts as well as more general 1800's and early 1900's railroad stuff. Occasionally I rework and repair my own firearms; most of my shop time seems to be spent keeping my son's truck and heavy equipment fleet running, my daughter-in-law's business supplied with prototypes and fixtures, and doing some things for my other son's custom motorcycles that he can't do on the 6" Atlas/Craftsman that I gave him. When I'm caught up with all that then I get to work on my 1:20.3 scale model railroading hobby. Retirement is so boring.

And this time around I put in a really sophisticated fire/burglar alarm system. The DoD is alerted and choppers are in the air in 3 minutes. Plus I have no compunctions against shooting an identified intruder first and arguing with him second (if he's able to). I load my household-defense pump shotgun with alternating loads of No. 2 buck and deer slugs; and will try for the knees but the pattern might ride up. (The No. 2 is for two-legged vermin, the slugs for engine blocks or knee caps.) I'm not anti-social; I was robbed once and it just isn't going to happen again.

I have just broken my rules again and purchased a brand-new fresh from the container ship Chinese-built 8x12 metal lathe. The nameplate says it was built in Spring 2005. I am much more impressed with this lathe than I was with the older Jet mill-drill. Perhaps Asian tools are coming of age.

Why did I buy this Chinese machine and why did I buy this 8x rather than one of the much more popular 7x and 9x Chinese lathes? If all you know about it right now is the hearsay you read in the online BBS groups and the descriptions in the machine ads, especially the Harbor Freight catalog 8x12 description, then you have a few surprises coming. I will tell you all about my decision: I review this 8x12 lathe elsewhere in these pages.

By the way, if you don't have a sense of humor and/or don't appreciate mine, then don't bother with this web site. I do this for my own enjoyment and hope I can also add to yours.

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