The day started for some of us, with a trip to the ABC Pattern and Foundry.
We toured the foundry and really enjoyed hanging out in the pattern shop.
This foundry had been open since 1923, the pattern shop in the configuration
seen here dated from 1965. At it's peak ABC employed 12 full time patternmakers.
Yes, many an electron was sacrificed in this place, but the skilled patternmakers
did much of their best work with handtools.
Galootapalooza takes place
on the Saturday before The Area E M-WTCA meet at Garfield Farm in LaFox
Illinois. After a day of activities such as the Kane County Flea Market,
or building shaker boxes, Galoots gather for a cookout, demonstrations
and show and tell. This year, at Jerry Serviss' Suburban Chicago home.
At G4 Tod Herli brought a selection of his planes for show and tell. He also treated us to a demonstration of heat treating plane irons.
Russ Allen performs a demonstration of the sand casting process. In this step Russ is making a mold of his pattern. Gil Chesbro observes.
Why are all the men in this picture smiling? If you have to ask, it's because you've never been to Galootapalooza!
The next morning it's off to Garfield Farm for the Area E M-WTCA meet in LaFox Il.
Typical
of most outdoor meets, the grounds are loaded with tools for every taste.
This is where users and collectors take care of each other. Collectors desire
rare and unusual tools, so dealers go out and dig them up. Users take good
advantage of their efforts by purchasing the user tools that dealers bring
back from their hunts. Dealers make higer margins on collector tools, but
they also provide a steady stream of more common user tools as well.
At a tool meet like Garfield, us newer Galoots can get overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of tools. Help is always near, however in the form of a more experienced Neanderthal. In this case, Ralph Brendler. Ralph and others will gladly help separate the wheat from the chaff, tell you for what job a tools was used, and demonstrate what to look for when choosing a tool whether you plan on putting to use, or saving it on a shelf.
Here we see Alan Graham perusing a beautiful incarnation of user *and* collector tool. A Preston infill smoother. Not common, in beautiful condition, and dare I say an extremely useful plane. Alan set it down and Gil picked it up.Either way it would have had a good home and many years of careful use.
After the Garfield meet winds down, some Galoots hit a local restaurant for breakfast, others hit the road with what's left of their money. Once again, we all declare the M-WTCA dues to be the best $25 spent that year, and we start looking forward to the next Galootapalooza!
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