"Lee Michaels" wrote in message
eb.com...

My chest swelled with pride. I never forgot that little talk he gave me.
I have calipers everywhere. In all the vehicles. In my office. In the
shop. And a tape measure laying along side of it. It just seemed natural
for me to verify the thickness of anything I build with. Be it metal,
wood. plastic or whatever. How can you possible expect to do a good job
joining different material together if you don't know their exact size? As
pointed out to me by a kind salvage yard guy, it is the "professional" way
to do things.

Reminds me of my father... he went through an apprenticeship as a tool and
die maker and worked as same early in his career. Precision, tolerances, and
good workmanship and machines matter. I also recall him saying half
jokingly that "Williamsburg ruined you." He was referring to my time working
as a skilled craft interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg. The day he made the
comment I was wrestling with a home renovation decision... Assuming equal
physical and workmanship quality, there were various options and to me it
HAD to look right or it would detract from the whole.

Williamsburg sensitized me to the whole notion of aesthetics and making
parts relative to other parts instead of to detailed technical drawings.
Both things became an important part of what I do. The aesthetics part takes
time to plan out... Golden mean, Fibonacci progressions, etc. Making parts
relative to what is already there, but within the design, frees me from
"hard" plans. Often my "plans" are a rough sketch with gross dimensions, the
rest is built to fit.... yellow sticky notes are sometimes enough paper. ;~)
I apply the quality workmanship to the design... Seems to work out well
judging by my success at shows.

John