[JayJay]

Similar to Brent, I had to start building up my own set of hand tools because my dad was still using his at the time. I started with 70's era Craftsman because they were pretty much the go-to at the time. A few Snap-Ons and SKs from the local distributors.

As far as machinery, I have always been interested in both woodworking and in metal working. Early on I determined that the two in the same shop were really not compatible, so after I settled down in a house I elected to build up a set of pretty decent woodworking machinery - table saw, jointer, planer, shaper, band saw, drill press, plus a bunch of hand power tools like routers (at one time I think I had six!).

Fast forward forty years, I'd built two houses and all the cabinets for one of them, and I found that I just didn't have quite the spark for woodworking and cabinet making as I used to. So I sold off some of the more esoteric machinery to create space and decided to get into metal working. I looked at used machinery but eventually elected to go with small Chinese metal lathe and vertical mill, which I'd upgrade if I ended up wanting to. Taught myself to use both because - well, there ain't no more machining classes at the local junior colleges. Both have turned out to be way too small so I will eventually upgrade to a decent Bridgeport-style knee mill and a decent engine lathe. Bought a used gas welding rig but could not find a decent used wire welder so I bought that new. All my precision measuring equipment was acquired used locally thanks to manufacturing moving overseas. (As recently as the late '90s, we still had robust precision manufacturing here in Silicon Valley. No longer.) Then, I got back into Model As after a long hiatus, and here we are today.

Regrettably, I don't think either of my kids or kids-in-law have inherited the same avocation, so when I get out of this then likely all will go external.