happyhoosier

In his shop my 90 year old father has a home-made vacuum hose holder made from a piece of gutter on which he wrote, "It's called making do with what you have." Kudos to n2finewoodworking for keeping alive this spirit by building a useful shop with essentially cast-off materials. It is the confluence of originality and economy, two of the top entries in my book of virutes.

The sad fact is that when this country rebuilds itself, if ever, it will be with Asian tools.

You simply cannot convince the general public that paying twice as much for a tool that lasts five times as long and works four times better is a good deal. Ever notice that it's never the shoddy-products company that is bought by the high-quality company? There just isn't a market for quality. Or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say the market for quality is so small that it cannot support itself.

Maybe Delta's new owners will produce a high quality product with superior engineering. Maybe. In the mean time, my old Unisaw and Biesemeyer fence is looking better and better.

Like everyone else I am sad to see Norm hang it up. Although I never met him, I understand that he is the exception to the rule that nice guys finish last.
I learned a lot of techniques from NYW, but probably just as important I learned the pleasure of working with my hands. You only had to look at Norm to realize that he derived deep satisfaction from his craft. That inspired me (and many others, I am sure) to take up woodworking as a hobby.