Thread: How making these models got me seriously interested in Woodworking (cont.)

That's spectacular.

Originally Posted by bryon

Hi Dallas, My wife is from Olympia, Washington State. She moved here to Australia 6 years ago after we met on the internet 4 years earlier. I've actually been to Indiana once before to visit a mate of mine who was living at Purdue University for a year. Unfortunately It was a very fleeting visit and I didnt get to see anything much of Indiana sadly.

i live across the river from purdue

Originally Posted by bryon

My wife was quite interested in the progress of the Ford Pick up and actually gave me a hand sanding bits and pieces from time to time. She comes from the USA where she has a father who is a corn farmer and suggested I look for a plan of a tractor on the Net to see if I could make it as a present for him . She found one on the internet, ordered the plans and so I was then committted - apparently. The tractor was a vintage Allis Chalmers and I approached the making of this model the same way as before - don't be daunted by the completed project - make one piece then another and so on. The wheels on the tractor presented a challenge I just couldn;t overcome without the aid of a bandsaw and this is where my wife's interest and encouragement was going to play in my favour!!! She could see I needed a bandsaw to make the wheels so how could she object to me getting one??? she couldn't! she could also see the value in a bench sander and a lathe -which SHE bought as a surprise for my birthday - you guessed It - A $99 GMC Well at this point in time I had never used a lathe, so set about trying to use it and felt something was very wrong with this whole wood turning bizzo so I turned to the net - this forum in fact and found pretty much what i expected - that the lathe was a dud - plus I still didn't have any lathe chisels. I was able to pick up a set of 3 lathe chisels at the Bendigo Swap Meet for $15 and persevered for a while but even she realised - this was not a good lathe. Especially after we had seen the Bendigo Woodturners Club in action at a local display they had one day. She agreed we needed a better lathe, so i bought a Ledacraft mini lathe which proved to be like chalk and cheese compared to the old GMC. But Before I got the GMC or the Ledacraft my tractor progressed to completion and again with all the round bits turned on an electric drill set up - the results are pictured below

That's a great story.