My great-grandfather was a wheelwright and a very skilled one by all account. I never really knew him but I did know his tools. My granddad still used them, even though he was a  church minister. My granddad loved to use a spokeshave, I assume that it reminded of good times with his own father. There is a skill to use a spokeshave, they are wonderful tools if you know what you are doing with them, they can also be quite dangerous.

When my granddad passed away, my dad made sure that he inherited at least one of the spokeshaves. Unlike my great-grandfather I live in a “throw away society” when it comes to tools. Few people go to the DIY store to buy a tool for life, this is especially true for IT tools where we are constantly chasing a newer model.

Human beings are one of the few creatures that uses tools. Sometimes we don’t recognise them as such, but that is what they are.

There are many definitions of “tool” – the one I like is this “anything used as a means of accomplishing a task or purpose”.

The tools I use are probably not the tools you use, and if they are you probably use them in a different way to me. So I’ve decided that there is probably a lot of value to myself and to others to open a conversation on the tools that I use. Perhaps someone will learn something from the things that I do, but I hope I’ll learn a lot from the tools that others use.

I’ve created a new category for these posts too.