Years ago there used to be an amazing lumber store in Los Angeles called Penberthy Lumber. Steve Penberthy, rather than stay in Los Angeles to work in the family business, moved to Portland and started Woodcrafters Lumber Sales–which to this day is the largest woodworking store in the Pacific Northwest. They carry just about everything a woodworker could ever want or need, including a few select Bridge City items. They are our favorite resource for wood used in photoshoots and assorted projects.
Steve Penberthy has been a business friend for over 30 years–even though he is the reason I had to quit my furniture making career (he sold me the exotic wood that made me hyper allergic to wood dust). It would be more honest to say this was a result of me not wearing a dust mask, but this is America where somebody else must take the blame… Regardless, it was one of those life changing moments that was meant to be, for which I take full credit.
This morning I hopped over to Woodcrafters to buy some scrap wood for our next Jointmaker Pro video and spotted Steve at the checkout counter.
“I have something for you” he said, and retrieved a pile of Polaroid images.
Sifting, he spotted what he was looking for and handed me an image of John Economaki (that would be me) attending Bridge City’s very first woodworking trade show. The venue was the Cow Palace in San Francisco in early 1984.
I only had two tools to show, the TS-2 Try Square and the SA-2 Scratch Awl. There was no fancy booth, just a table, a 70’s mustache and a story to tell about two tools.
The image has deteriorated but it is the oldest known image of me actually doing something, although that is not obvious either.
-John
Bridge City Tool Works officially began with an ad in the 1983 Nov/Dec issue of Fine Woodworking magazine. As weird as this sounds, that does not seem so long ago to me but this image proves that I must be delusional. Our first full year of operations was 1984. Here it is 25 years later–hmmm, I smell some special events around the corner……