I have enjoyed your woodworking story's and thought I would share this one with you.
I had just a few months to go to complete my 20 years in the Air Force. They had moved me around so much that I had never been able to accumulate the woodworking tools I dreamed of....but knowing they couldn't move me again....I bought the tool of my dreams, a Sears Radial Arm Saw. I lived in base housing and only had a storage room about 4x6 ft to put it in and it filled that space up pretty good. I couldnt saw long boards in there but would rough cut them with a jig saw outside and finish cut them there in the "closet". The high pitched sound of that saw cutting a board upset my neighbors so I had to kind of sneak around and whack a board just now and then.
I decided on ponderosa pine for my first project but the lumber yard was out of good ponderosa pine, only having a few old discolored and real knotty stuff that they just gave me. So I jig sawed the worst and biggest knots out and used what I could salvage. My 12 year old son asked me what I was going to do with the knots and I said throw them away. He said, "But they are too pretty to throw away."
I jigged out a better looking knot about 3 inches in diameter and set the kid to sanding and polishing it. We finished it with either linseed oil or lacquer and that really brought out all the natural swirls in the design.
A neighbor saw that pine knot laying on our coffee table and said, "oh, thats so pretty. What is it, a paperweight?" Not wonting to argue with a lady, I said, "Uhhhh, yeah." She wonted one so I made her one. She insisted on paying me for it so I just threw out the figure of $3.00 and she was glad to pay it.
I went out in the yard where I had a whole pile of accumulating pine knots and said to myself,"Hmmmmmmmmmmmm."
I made myself a nice pine knot paper weight. I drilled holes in its backside and pounded lead fishing weights in it to give it some weight. At a craft store, I bought some cheap felt material to cover the backside. Presto!! Super-duper pine knot paperweight.
I took it to work with me. My job at that time was assisting an old ChiefMSgt who was in charge of a maintenance outfit of about 400 people. He was having heart problems and was not at work very often at that time. Our combined office was a partially glassed in affair and was the center of a lot of activity, people flooding thru there all day long.
My pine knot paper weight began to draw some attention. One guy asked what kind of finish I had put on it. I told him hand rubbed lacquer and he pulled out his tobacco pipe and showed it to me and said it looked just like the finish on his expensive burlwood pipe.
He said I should rub that pine knot on my nose. "Do wwhhhhaaaattt?" I replied. He claimed that all real konysewers of expensive smoking pipes rubbed them on their noses and the nose oil kept them shined up real good. I tried it on my pine knot and danged if it didnt work good.
I have got a pretty good sized honker on me and evidently it never did run out of oil cause my pine knot paperweight stayed shined up real well. When someone walked into the outer office filled with administrative people and asked if old Sgt Sims was in he would be told, "Yeah, he is right back there rubbing his nose with a pine knot."
Other people walking down a hallway on the back side of my office they would see me doing a nose job on my pine knot. Some stopped to discuss matters with me, others just shook their head and got on out of the area.
A certain sargeant walked into my office and asked what the heck I was doing rubbing my nose with a chunk of wood. This particular sargeant considered himself to be a biblical scholar. I had previously counciled him about preaching on the job. So I tailored my answer to his way of thinking.
I picked up my pine knot paperweight and handed it to him and told him to look at it real close.
He stared at it for a minute and said, "Ok, Im looking at it....so what?"
"Look real close," I told him, "see all the little swirls and ripple designs in it?" He said he did and I explained, "God designed that and that is the only one in the world like it. Out of all the pine knots in the world there will never be another one just like that."
The knot seemed to have him mesmerized as I told him, "when I get to thinking about how important I am, I only have to look at that pine knot to realize that I am only one tiny part of a much larger plan."
He said for me to make him one. My first sale! After he left, I picked up the pine knot and took a close look at it and became ashamed of myself. I suddenly realized that I had told the absolute truth disguised as a sleazy sales job. And I wondered if that particular sargeant who considered himself to be a biblical scholar had never asked about the pine knot if the thought would have ever crossed my mind. I stared at that pine knot, knowing the truth that it was the only one in the world like it. And I really did feel small and insignificant in the whole scheme of things.
That didnt stop me from going into the pine knot paperweight business full time though. Most of the admin people outside my office bought them and the religious sargeant kept coming back with new orders. My children got so tired of sanding and polishing pine knots that they were threatening not to comme home from school in the evenings.
I went back to the lumberyard. The clerk told me he had a new batch of ponderosa pine in that wasnt like that sorry stuff he gave me before. I told him, heck, I cant make any money out of that new stuff, I needed some more of his culls.
The commander of our organization had been on a 60 day temporary duty assignment when I started my pine knot business. When he returned and passed through the admin section and paused to say hello and saw everyone sitting around rubbing their noses with a pine knot, being a very observant officer, he demanded an explanation. His investigation led him directly to me.
He wonted a pine knot paperweight and I had made him up a real nice one as sort of a bribe because I already knew that my little business was semi-illegal in the eyes of the military. Senior Airmen are not allowed to gamble with or take unfair financial advantage of lower ranking airman was the regulation I was flirting with. And sure enough, the Major had not been back but just a few days before he was told that he should curb my nefarious activities.
The neighbor lady that bought my first pine knot paper weight had got jealous of the money the kids and I were making and had turned me in to the base housing authority for using Air Force housing for business purposes. But she and her husband were Amway dealers.
Soooooo, there are more ways than one to skin a cat so I re-organized my burgeoning pine knot business along the lines of Amway and started working thru "distributors." I figured if my neighbor could host Amway distributors in her house, I could throw a party for my pine knot distributors there next door to her. If I was guilty, so was she.
I guess the Air Force and I were both fortunate when I retired, although it was the end of my pine knot paperweight business. Easy come, easy go.
To this day, when I walk into someone's house and they have a nice knotty pine living room or den, I have to control myself to keep from strolling around the walls inspecting the pine knots. And just think.....God never makes any two of them exactly alike. Knowing that has been a lot more profitable to me than the money I made.
I had just a few months to go to complete my 20 years in the Air Force. They had moved me around so much that I had never been able to accumulate the woodworking tools I dreamed of....but knowing they couldn't move me again....I bought the tool of my dreams, a Sears Radial Arm Saw. I lived in base housing and only had a storage room about 4x6 ft to put it in and it filled that space up pretty good. I couldnt saw long boards in there but would rough cut them with a jig saw outside and finish cut them there in the "closet". The high pitched sound of that saw cutting a board upset my neighbors so I had to kind of sneak around and whack a board just now and then.
I decided on ponderosa pine for my first project but the lumber yard was out of good ponderosa pine, only having a few old discolored and real knotty stuff that they just gave me. So I jig sawed the worst and biggest knots out and used what I could salvage. My 12 year old son asked me what I was going to do with the knots and I said throw them away. He said, "But they are too pretty to throw away."
I jigged out a better looking knot about 3 inches in diameter and set the kid to sanding and polishing it. We finished it with either linseed oil or lacquer and that really brought out all the natural swirls in the design.
A neighbor saw that pine knot laying on our coffee table and said, "oh, thats so pretty. What is it, a paperweight?" Not wonting to argue with a lady, I said, "Uhhhh, yeah." She wonted one so I made her one. She insisted on paying me for it so I just threw out the figure of $3.00 and she was glad to pay it.
I went out in the yard where I had a whole pile of accumulating pine knots and said to myself,"Hmmmmmmmmmmmm."
I made myself a nice pine knot paper weight. I drilled holes in its backside and pounded lead fishing weights in it to give it some weight. At a craft store, I bought some cheap felt material to cover the backside. Presto!! Super-duper pine knot paperweight.
I took it to work with me. My job at that time was assisting an old ChiefMSgt who was in charge of a maintenance outfit of about 400 people. He was having heart problems and was not at work very often at that time. Our combined office was a partially glassed in affair and was the center of a lot of activity, people flooding thru there all day long.
My pine knot paper weight began to draw some attention. One guy asked what kind of finish I had put on it. I told him hand rubbed lacquer and he pulled out his tobacco pipe and showed it to me and said it looked just like the finish on his expensive burlwood pipe.
He said I should rub that pine knot on my nose. "Do wwhhhhaaaattt?" I replied. He claimed that all real konysewers of expensive smoking pipes rubbed them on their noses and the nose oil kept them shined up real good. I tried it on my pine knot and danged if it didnt work good.
I have got a pretty good sized honker on me and evidently it never did run out of oil cause my pine knot paperweight stayed shined up real well. When someone walked into the outer office filled with administrative people and asked if old Sgt Sims was in he would be told, "Yeah, he is right back there rubbing his nose with a pine knot."
Other people walking down a hallway on the back side of my office they would see me doing a nose job on my pine knot. Some stopped to discuss matters with me, others just shook their head and got on out of the area.
A certain sargeant walked into my office and asked what the heck I was doing rubbing my nose with a chunk of wood. This particular sargeant considered himself to be a biblical scholar. I had previously counciled him about preaching on the job. So I tailored my answer to his way of thinking.
I picked up my pine knot paperweight and handed it to him and told him to look at it real close.
He stared at it for a minute and said, "Ok, Im looking at it....so what?"
"Look real close," I told him, "see all the little swirls and ripple designs in it?" He said he did and I explained, "God designed that and that is the only one in the world like it. Out of all the pine knots in the world there will never be another one just like that."
The knot seemed to have him mesmerized as I told him, "when I get to thinking about how important I am, I only have to look at that pine knot to realize that I am only one tiny part of a much larger plan."
He said for me to make him one. My first sale! After he left, I picked up the pine knot and took a close look at it and became ashamed of myself. I suddenly realized that I had told the absolute truth disguised as a sleazy sales job. And I wondered if that particular sargeant who considered himself to be a biblical scholar had never asked about the pine knot if the thought would have ever crossed my mind. I stared at that pine knot, knowing the truth that it was the only one in the world like it. And I really did feel small and insignificant in the whole scheme of things.
That didnt stop me from going into the pine knot paperweight business full time though. Most of the admin people outside my office bought them and the religious sargeant kept coming back with new orders. My children got so tired of sanding and polishing pine knots that they were threatening not to comme home from school in the evenings.
I went back to the lumberyard. The clerk told me he had a new batch of ponderosa pine in that wasnt like that sorry stuff he gave me before. I told him, heck, I cant make any money out of that new stuff, I needed some more of his culls.
The commander of our organization had been on a 60 day temporary duty assignment when I started my pine knot business. When he returned and passed through the admin section and paused to say hello and saw everyone sitting around rubbing their noses with a pine knot, being a very observant officer, he demanded an explanation. His investigation led him directly to me.
He wonted a pine knot paperweight and I had made him up a real nice one as sort of a bribe because I already knew that my little business was semi-illegal in the eyes of the military. Senior Airmen are not allowed to gamble with or take unfair financial advantage of lower ranking airman was the regulation I was flirting with. And sure enough, the Major had not been back but just a few days before he was told that he should curb my nefarious activities.
The neighbor lady that bought my first pine knot paper weight had got jealous of the money the kids and I were making and had turned me in to the base housing authority for using Air Force housing for business purposes. But she and her husband were Amway dealers.
Soooooo, there are more ways than one to skin a cat so I re-organized my burgeoning pine knot business along the lines of Amway and started working thru "distributors." I figured if my neighbor could host Amway distributors in her house, I could throw a party for my pine knot distributors there next door to her. If I was guilty, so was she.
I guess the Air Force and I were both fortunate when I retired, although it was the end of my pine knot paperweight business. Easy come, easy go.
To this day, when I walk into someone's house and they have a nice knotty pine living room or den, I have to control myself to keep from strolling around the walls inspecting the pine knots. And just think.....God never makes any two of them exactly alike. Knowing that has been a lot more profitable to me than the money I made.
How much to shine my end tables ??
......Great idea, great story !!
