jptinsmith

I live in upstate NY, run a one-man business making, repairing and restoring old lighting fixtures dating from 1780 up to around 1860. I've got a pretty complete tinsmithing shop with a lot of the tools used in the mid to late 1800's and also mills, 3 lathes, SB shaper, State oscillating spindle sander. I took a couple of courses in tinsmithing and as for machining I'm self-taught so there's still a whole lot to learn. I started tinsmithig in the early 90sdd and bought my first lathe and mill around 2000. Before that I worked on dairy farms, monkeyed around with horses and moved on to selling dairy farm supplies. I'm happiest when I'm working on something new, figuring things out and working with the lathe and mill. I do enjoy what I do so going to 'work' in the morning is more like going to play. I've really enjoyed learning about the machines - converted my c. 1935 SouthBend 9" model C to a model A with a lot of help from an on-line friend and am nearly done work with a Clausing 6900 14x48 - disassembly, cleaning and fixing some stuff that busted when it took a nose dive to the floor. A Prazi bench mill is my newest piece of machinery which I bought around 20 years ago. I do like working with the old tools and machinery.

period heavy oil lighting, steam locomotives, early cattle ranching