Popular Woodworking 2003-02 № 132, страница 104

Out of the Woodwork

The Old Man and the Ceiling

Forget measuring devices. All he needed was more than 50 years of experience and a tool-in-hand to calm the shakes.

While I was growing up my father and I built two houses and a cottage - from the ground up. From those experiences I learned to do almost everything you need to do to build a house (thank you, Dad) including footings, foundations, framing, roofing, plumbing and electrical work. As a consequence, whenever in-laws or friends have renovation projects or are wiring a basement, I am invariably involved.

One day, while I was working on my brother-in-law's Victorian home, he mentioned that he wanted to put a wooden strip ceiling in his study along with some crown moulding. I said I would help him, but he told me there was no need as he had found "this old guy" to do the work.

The next day this gentleman arrived and I immediately went into shock. This guy had to be 90 with the craggiest face I have ever seen - some of his wrinkles rivaled the depth of the Grand Canyon. He was carrying a ladder that had to be as old as he was and with about as many cracks in the rungs.

The old man stopped to talk to us, and he was shaking so much that he could barely hold on to his cigarette. I thought to myself, "This rickety old fellow is never going to be able to do the ceiling."

All the lumber for the project was already stacked in the room. He set up the ladder and opened up his toolbox. All that was in there was a bunch of saws that had seen better days, a couple of hammers, some sandpaper and a block plane.

The moment he picked up his tools, all the shakiness disappeared. He grabbed a board, the hammer and some nails and walked up the ladder like it was a rock-steady set of stairs and proceeded to put the first board in place. Of course the boards were all different lengths, requiring him to go up and down the ladder again and again. But he moved as fast as a bunny. He hammered happily away, whistling, with a cigarette dangling from his lips.

As he started to fit pieces to fill in the spaces to meet the walls I watched an amazing thing. This old man would pick up a board and spend about a minute looking at the ceiling, then back to the board and then the ceiling again. Then he would mark a spot on the board with his thumb, rest one end of the board on a step of the ladder and the other across his knee. While standing up and balanced on one leg, he would cut the board at the thumb mark. Then he'd walk up the ladder, put the board in place and it would be the perfect length.

He did this with every board and was never more than a H" to V2" out at the walls. He told me he wasn't worried about being too accurate because those spaces would be covered up when he put the crown moulding up. And, he said that the wood needed to breathe anyway.

Now if you've ever worked on an old house you know that the walls are rarely square. This house was the same way, so when the old man came to the edges of the room the

boards would have to be cut at a wide variety of angles in order to fit properly. That is where the plane came in. He did the same thing here as he had done earlier. He looked at the ceiling and then looked at the board. Then he would plane the edge freehand, walk up the ladder and fit the board in perfectly. I only saw him come down that ladder once to correct a fitting problem.

The old man finished the entire 14' x 12' ceiling in one day (seven hours), and yes he did the crown moulding the same way he worked the other boards. No miter boxes were involved. Rather he would draw a line using a pencil and a stick of wood where he wanted to make his cut.

Every time the old man didn't have a tool in his hands he got the shakes. Hammer in hand - no shakes. Put the hammer down -he would shake like a kitten.

Over a beer that night I asked him how he had learned to work with such accuracy without a tape measure or a square, and how he cut so perfectly without a miter box.

He looked at me with a twinkle in his eyes and said something along these lines: "Well sonny, I've been doing this for 75 years and after 50 years at the job I finally got really good at it." PW

Ben Knebel, plane-maker, is vice president of marketing and sales for the Shepherd Tool Co. In addition to making planes, Ben avidly collects British tools and loves to tell stories. You can read more of his stories at shep-herdtool.com.

104 Popular Woodworking February 2003