# I found John Walcot!



## reedwood

I got a message today …. had to share!

I wrote a blog called: John Walcot … Where are you? 
http://lumberjocks.com/reedwood/blog/35419

and got a reply today as follows:

My last comment:

It would be neat if somehow he found this message. Hopefully, someone lives nearby or knows him and can let him know. What if that is him? If he's still with us, he's 91 yrs old now.

I'm sure he would like to hear someone show a little respect and appreciation for his hard work. I know I would.

Mark

Don "Dances with Wood" Butler

Considering his age, it may be that he is not now living.
Perhaps that's why the tool was sold.

maplerock

I think he may be living. I found a phone number, but perhaps he's not in Benbrook anymore. Go to:
anywho.com type in John Walcott Texas. You'll get 2 possibilities. One matches the age description. Good luck!

johnsgirl

" Wow!!.... I was thrilled too see this!! John Walcott was my Dad. 
He passed away earlier this year - 2014 at 92. He often wondered if any of these would find their way to ebay.

He made these for his tool collector friends and donated several to Midwest Tool Collectors for their yearly auction.
I'm so glad you appreciate the work that he did…he was very proud of it. I have one myself,

Dad loved tools and appreciated everything about them as a user and collector. A self taught man with only a 9th grade formal education. He worked as an electronics engineer for a major company, and was a field engineer troubleshooter in the radar field…think U2, F16, X-15.

After retiring after 32 years, he decided he'd like to work with wood, so read everything he could find and decided since the "old guys" made beautiful furniture before the advent of all the fancy electric tools, he'd get a "few" planes and tools to see what it was all about.

Major fail….he had a collection of over 150 planes and multitude of other tools when he was forced to give up his passion due to macular degeneration.

I'm thrilled that I could answer a little of the mystery concerning this gauge. It is a remarkable piece, made by a remarkable man…..I so wish I could share this with him.

I know he'd be thrilled it found a good home!

... to answer your some of your questions….
Yes, the knobs and misc. pieces and parts were made by Dad. He had an old lathe that was purchased used in the mid 1950's. He geared it to be used for both metal and wood. It was used primarily for metal work until his passion with wood took hold. And yes, he was a pretty good machinist too, so understood tight tolerances and how to achieve them.
I sold most of his collectibles on eBay over the past 6 years or so…his expertise was a bit of a problem for me. With his sight failing, I'd ask him if he restored a particular plane, or was it original? He'd look it over, turn it over a few times, then reply "well, I'm not sure, but if I did anything to it, I did a pretty good job!" I have to say, I learned a ton about those old tools…in order to list, I had to be educated and understand all the pieces and parts.

I think he left this world feeling he'd accomplished something …. he made me learn something!! "

How cool is this? What a great ending to a fun story!

Thank you, Johnsgirl. I'm sure he was very proud of you.


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## waho6o9

Great blog!


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## Gene01

Beautiful story.


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## stefang

A Great story. It's too bad Mr. Walcot wasn't still alive to hear your praise, but I'm sure his daughter was thrilled to learn how appreciated his work was and that is almost as good.


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## joey502

I really enjoyed the blog and follow up, well done.


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## Gshepherd

Great Story, I will tip my hat off to John for a job well done. You got yourself a fine marking guage.


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