Autine Tools-Forestry Forum Support Auction Large Forest Axe #1 begins!

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

That's right. Tell us about yourself Calvin, before you get the AXE.  ;D

[Magicman]

Congratulations and Welcome to the Forestry Forum, Calvin.   

[calw1izl]

Awww shucks guys   8)  Well I am pleased#1 as punch to be the proud owner of the #1  axe. I am debating if I want to actually use it or put on display over the fireplace. 

Actually I am originally from the Finger Lakes region of Upstate NY where I owned and operated a large dairy farm as well as a large (in excess of 3200 acres) cash crop operation.  I was in the right place at the right time and worked into the acreage that used to be under potato production as some of you will recognize the Schuler Potato Chip Farms era of the 60's and 70's.  At any rate we milked 250 head of Holsteins and cashed cropped a bunch of acres between corn, soybeans, wheat, oats and alfalfa hay production.  Luckily I also had a tad over 300 acres of hardwoods which needed management and my primary hobby at that time was operating a cabinet shop building custom furniture and antique restoration during the winter months so it was a natural "fit" to learn to love sawdust  ;D

Fast forward more years than I care to remember/admit and after leaving the farming industry in the mid 80's, I worked "the county", Aroostook County up north serving the agronomy needs of the potato growers for nearly 15 years, selling equipment and doing agronomy work as needed.  My wife grew up in the Rangely area and since we both had strong ties to the area, we chose our new home here in Robbinston for my retirement.  We have a 160 + - acre farm here which is almost all wooded with a mix of Black Spruce, Cedar, Birch and Maple which I will be sawing and drying for the local construction and retail markets.

That's it in a nutshell.  Lots of great folks with a ton of experience and knowledge. My past experience has been with circular mills and aside from putting a couple of smaller, earlier model Woodmizer mills together for a couple of friends of mine and helping them get off the ground, my band sawmill experience is limited at best.

Thank you everyone for the welcome comments.

[WDH]

Calvin,

We are proud to have you join us as a member of the Forestry Forum.  It looks like you have plenty of wood and tools, but if you need a good walnut live-edged oval to display that axe, I am sure that I have one and I will be glad to ship it to you to display that beautiful axe if you go the display route.

[Warbird]

Awesome story.  Thanks for sharing and congrats on the axe!

[calw1izl]

Thanks WDH, the urge to use it may overwhelm the urge to display it  : so we will see where that all goes! It just seems fitting to not only own something that is a one of a kind tool but to give something back, something that a lot of us in past years may not have been able to do.  At any rate I will enjoy the tool no matter what mode it may be in.

When I was doing cabinet work as well as some of the European restoration work, I became very familiar and actually adopted it as my "stand apart" separation point, was dovetail joinery and utilizing what many would call primitive techniques to forgo screw, nail and any other means of joinery methods.  While a pain in the butt at times to learn the pitfalls and work-arounds, it was always rewarding to see the finished product and the look on folks eyes when they could not see or find any steel in their piece.  When I saw the video of the axes being made, it made me think of all the lost craftsmanship along the way of today's technology, of which most is junk, just MHO. 

I will keep your offer in mind! 

[clww]

Great story!
Great support! 
Welcome to the Forestry Forum! 

[doctorb]

Welcome to your new home.  Great story.

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Calvin did a great thing for the support of the FF. And to think he only had 1 or 2 post.

I vote in recognition of this, he go ahead and get his 5 trees beside his Avatar.