Last week I went to the fall meeting of the tool collectors’ association at Bethania Moravian Church near Winston-Salem. We get together periodically to see programs on old tools, primarily the woodworking type, and may trade and buy some tools. Bethania is a good place to think about old things since it is one of the oldest Moravian communities in the country. Driving around the community, you get a sense of history and historic preservation- perfect for people who value the history of old tools. Most of the tools have been used by multiple generations of craftsmen, and when you hold one and use it, there’s almost a sense of the previous owners’ presence, particularly if they have been somehow marked by the then-current owner.
Some of the people who attend these meetings are true collectors, accumulating large numbers of planes, or folding rulers, or levels or who knows what else. I guess there is the thrill of the hunt for ever more rare tools that fires them up. For me, it is the opportunity to find more of these tools of better quality to use in my own woodworking efforts back at the Suther Shop. I’ve just evolved my woodworking into a path that uses mostly hand tools because of the ability to do great work with them in a relatively quiet, dust-free, don’t-cut-your-finger-off environment that powered tools just can’t offer. There are now some wonderfully made new handtools out there that can do great work. I have bought a few. But, somehow, there is a special value to getting an old tool, tuning it up, and making it sing that you can’t match with a new tool. Call me nostalgic. OK. Whatever. The point is to do what you like because half of the reason of doing it is to have fun.
Here are a few photos from the gathering. By the way, the last photo shows us sitting down to a great lunch of Moravian chicken pie- a very special treat that is a trademark of the area. Let me know if you have an interest in this stuff, and I’ll get you hooked up.
