Anyone else took shop with a skilled craftsman who knew everything and affected your life trajectory?
I did. I took shop all four years of High School.
Mr. Zolonski knew arc welding, carpentry, electrical systems (AC & DC), plumbing, small engines, large engines (gas & diesel), tractor repair, gas welding, tinsmithing/metal work and how to properly field strip a Winchester Model 12 Shotgun, clean it, lube it, function check it, and then go duck hunting with it.
He once built a Ham Radio (Heath kit?) in a one hour class and then transmitted on it and found someone to talk to. He had vinyl records with morse code messages on them that he'd play in class and could keep up with the fastest dots and dashes and take the beeps and turn it into a readable message. Anyone who could accurately transcribe a message in class that he would transmit on a morse keypad to a speaker would get extra credit.
One of my fondest memories is checking tape measures and other measurement items for accuracy with known certified rules. In the photo, the Starrett steel ruler is an example of one of the known accurate rules he would use to check your personal tape measure or machinists rule. God help you if he caught you with a cheap import measure that was off.
"An inch is an inch is an inch" he'd say over and over. Accurate measuring tools meant accurate measuring meant accurate results.
The antique folding carpentry ruler under the Starrett Metal rule is spot on, inch for inch, from 1" all the way to the 12" maximum for the Starrett rule. The folding wood ruler used to belong to my grandfather and I've had it since 1977. Ignore the perceived errors at 1" and 7", that's a camera thing from my iPhone, I think its called "parallax."
My. Zolonski passed in 2010. I flew home for his funeral and the church was filled with men who used to be boys that he helped make into skilled tradesmen and craftsmen.
