My Grandfather's Shop Stool.

[Dave Richards]

This was my grandfather's shop stool. He had it before he had a grandson (me).


The other day I decided to model it for a blog post on the Fine Woodworking site.

 

[Rennie Heuer]

That is too cool - Wow. Nice Work.

 

[Dave Richards]

Thank you sir.

 

[Jay Caughron]

Love that work bench

 

[Dave Richards]

Love that work bench

Thanks Jay. That's the Shaker-style work bench from a Fine Woodworking Tools and Shops issue some years ago. The original sits in their shop in Connecticut.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Great rendering. That stool has some stories to tell.

 

[David Johnson]

Love that old stool. The stories it could tell. Also really like that work bench. It looks to nice to use.
David

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

Very well done! Your Sketchup skills continue to amaze me, Dave.

 

[Dave Richards]

Thank you gentlemen. Yes, that stool has stories. I can see my grandfather sitting on it in front of his bench, chewing on his pipe (he'd often let it go out and forget to relight it) working on some project like the wooden trains or trucks he made for the "little goblins" at the preschool. And I just now mentally got a whiff of the tobacco he smoked in that pipe.

 

[glenn bradley]

Thanks for this Dave. I dismissed shop stools as unnecessary for a long time. Well, my time has come. I am happy to be using an old cast iron Bausch & Lomb Optical Blue Industrial Medical Adjustable Stool from my dad's practice. He inherited it from the doctor he started out with who had bought it used in the 1930's. The seat pad has been replaced but it is still rolling on the original casters amazingly enough. It seems every family has someone who becomes the keeper of the past. I am that in my family. You honor your grandfather with the use and visual representation of his shop stool. Kudos.

 

[Mike Stafford]

This thread has brought back some memories for me. My grandfather worked with metals more than wood. He was a machinist in WWI on a ship and after he worked in the "tin box shop" making tobacco tins for RJReynolds.

He was always tinkering with metals in his shop. Toward the end of his life he made jewelry from copper pipe; primarily rings and bracelets. He thought that the copper would lessen the effect of rheumatism and arthritis both of which my grandmother suffered. He had a variety of hammers and files, punches and whatnots that he cut and shaped his creations with. I have one of the rings. It is gold to me.

He didn't have a stool but he had an old straight-backed kitchen chair with a pad in the seat. He also had a dorm sized refrigerator in his shop. In it he kept the cheapest beer he could find. On top there was always a tray with those large fig cookies. Every day at 10 A.M, he went out to his shop and had a beer and a fig newton cookie. I cannot imagine that combination.

I have some of his tools but I wish I had thought to get the chair and the refrigerator. I spent many happy hours with Granddaddy in his shop. Mostly he told stories and oh, how I wish he was here to tell them again.