Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote in
:
So in the interest of actually displaying some woodworking... ;~)
My wife and I visited North Canton Ohio for Thanksgiving. We were
hosted by our new other half in-laws. In particular our daughter
in-laws parents.
We visited the Warther Museum in Dover, Ohio.
The museum was dedicated to a shockingly talented wood worker. A bit
of history first. Immediately after the civil war the soldiers were
relieved of duty and free to go home. Unfortunately there was no free
transportation and the soldiers were on their own, often dead broke,
to get back home. They moved in droves from town to town on their
journey's. Locals referred to these soldiers as "Home Bound", Ho-Bo
for short. During the great depression the word Ho-Bo took on a
different meaning.
At a young age Ernest "Mooney" Warther became friends with one of the
Ho-Bo's. His new friend showed Mooney how to cut working wooden pair
of pliers out of a single piece of wood. Mooney was fascinated and
worked on the skill so that he too could accomplish this task. The
pliers are cut with a carving knife and there is no waste, shavings,
or saw dust. Mooney later developed a special carving knife with
interchangeable blades. Not being satisfied with a single pair of
pliers from a single piece of wood he ended up caving a pliers tree.
I forget how many perfect cuts and or how many pliers are made from
this single piece of wood but it is astonishing. No one has been able
to duplicate it. FWIW Mooney only had a second grade education so
there were no advanced math skills from his education.
This picture shows the pliers tree and if you look at the bottom right
corner you see a sample of the chunk of wood that the tree was made
from. The block of wood looks a bit like a missile.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lcb112...n/photostream/
A closer look. Click the picture to zoom in. Remember, no waste from
any of the cuts.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lcb112...n/photostream/
Moving on Mooney developed a fascination with locomotives. The
following links are to the trains he carved. The wood used was walnut
and ebony. Early on the white pieces were made from bleached soup
bones. Later on he replaced the bone parts with ivory. Very little
glue was used as glue back then had a short life. Most all are
functional and snap together. Many of the train models wheels and
drive lines were actually moving when I took the pictures. Scale is
perfect.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lcb112...n/photostream/
A model of the train that carried Lincoln to his burial site.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lcb112...n/photostream/
Other shots.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lcb112...n/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lcb112...n/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lcb112...n/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lcb112...n/photostream/
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwT3HVp5Klk
I noticed minature nut head detail and flanges on the wheels. That dude
went all out! I couldn't see it well enough to see if he got the flange
profile details right... but that would be quite a nit pick!
Puckdropper
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