Scott Grandstaff

I hail from just outside OKC, that’s Oklahoma City, Oklahoma for you non Okies. I was interested in woodworking early. I learned to read because of the pictures and illustrations in Popular Mechanics magazine. Also Mad magazine but I guess that’s for another time. I’d look over the pictures and was dying to know what they said about them. Between some friendly neighbors and later school I got my feet wet.

Being as it was Oklahoma, ie: tornado alley, house roofing in the summer was a typical kid’s profession so I roofed houses. I worked some construction jobs too mostly as carpenter’s helper.

I moved to the deep woods in the early 70’s. No electricity and dusty country roads. I found out what an axe was for right away. I always loved tools. I was digging though junk stores and swap meets as soon as I was settled and picking up the old hand tools nobody else wanted at the time. I bought some books and learned to tune the tools. Pretty soon I was working on cabins and bridges and other timber construction projects. There were of course more refined household and cruder but effective farmyard type projects all through. A guy’s got to live.

This first round lasted around 5 years. I built my first shop along in here.  Eventually, I got into regular frame construction followed by trim carpentry work. Along the way I was doing finer wood projects and some cabinet work. I worked at the town museum as much as they’d hire me for, maybe 2 days a week, and broadened my world a good bit. Plumbing, electric. From there old furniture started showing up at my place and repairing and restoring antiques became my job. Every family has a cherished sideboard or treadle sewing machine, etc, that great grandma passed down and I worked on many. I learned to conserve/restore and not simply refinish. I built custom pieces on the side.

As my skills grew I needed more and even better tools. Many of the old tools I could get needed work. This led to restoration techniques and custom fabrication. The portable bench/sawhorse/toolboxes and my miniature bench were printed in the Workbench book along in this time. This was round about 25 years ago. Along the way I took a job at a mine and worked for 15 years for the steady money. Metalworking and electrical work (along with lots of other jobs) were introduced into my life. But all along tool and cutlery projects attracted my attention. I was always building or modifying tools.

I took a job at a general auto shop for a while after the mine where I got to know nearly every car in the valley. Still, tools were on my mind and I learned to use the materials and parts available in the scrap bins of an auto garage in their creation.
Since then I’ve been writing and appraising antiques and of course, tools. I work on tools one way or another every day.

Yours, Scott