WALLA WALLA, Wash. (AP) – For his pay-the-mortgage job, Kurt Schoen flies cargo for UPS.

For his live-the-dream work, the Walla Walla man drives to a somewhat-secret location to play a different sort of tune.

Schoen, 44, has been creating custom, “cigar-box” guitars for nearly a decade. His tools consist of old wood, glue, antique metal and more old wood.

“You see this piece?” he asks, selecting a length of rugged lumber. “This wood is from New Orleans, from homes that didn’t make it through Hurricane Katrina.”

Running his hand gently over the wide plank, Schoen (pronounced “shane”) explains the wood originally came from a barge that brought supplies down the Mississippi River once upon a time.

The primary stars, however, are the wooden boxes sitting here, there and everywhere in the ramshackle workshop. Those will eventually become the bodies of Schoen’s signature instruments.

Little did he know back in 2001 that a project for his kids would become an abiding love. In hopes of inducing daughters Cheyenne and Daisy to become interested in music, Schoen took a couple of cardboard cigar boxes, ran a stick through and attached a pair of guitar strings to each. “They were not much,” he recalled with a laugh.

Enough, though, to ignite a desire to keep going.

Schoen began experimenting with wooden cigar boxes, then wondered just how nice he could make the homemade instruments, he said.

Eight years, countless experiments and hours of research later, he has his answer _ nice enough to make his creations sought after by unknown and renowned musicians alike. And not just cigar-box guitars, but handmade electric guitars, as well.

He calls the cigar-box instruments, outfitted with hand-punched aluminum resonator cones, “Turbo Diddley” after the Diddley bow homemade instruments significant to blues history.

Cigar-box music is, like the wood it comes from, going to be a little “rough around the edges,” Schoen noted. “Cigar-box guitars have really come to mean homemade instruments. Cigar-box music is not going to sound all that well produced.”

It shouldn’t. The guitars produce rich, thickly complex twangs of tonal layers. And although Schoen claims not to play guitar, his fingers say otherwise as he strums chords.

Now the special guitars are everywhere, from Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top to Andy Summers of The Police fame. Prices for the one-of-a-kind instruments, which take up to 120 hours to build, range from $1,500 to $5,000.

With some famous hands on his strings, Schoen started getting order after order, many of those repeat customers. He also began using other wooden boxes, like the Black &White Scotch whiskey box he is scraping clean. The age of the wood is an important factor in the resonance, he explained.

Schoen finds the old-growth boxes mostly on eBay. He also buys old suitcases for the aged hardware and hunts down steamer trunk keys to use as tuners, he said.

“You don’t want something new on something that looks old.”

On this day, guitars No. 98, 99 and 100 await completion. Then comes the hard part, shipping off the finished project.

“It’s like sending a child off to college,” Schoen said. “You’ve put so much of yourself into it … wondering how it’s doing. I need to know this instrument has met the mark.”

The best gift the guitars offer their owners is accessibility, Schoen said. “The whole reason to make it visually exciting is to entice the owner to pick it up and play with it.

“It’s non-threatening. It’s a cigar box. How approachable is that? It’s something you saw in Boy’s Life magazine growing up.”

And that brings Schoen’s music theory full circle – people need music, and music equals people, he said.

“The great thing about what I do is the relationships with people.”

___

Information from: Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, http://union-bulletin.com.

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WS-11-06-09 1510EST

SKIPPERVILLE, Ala. (AP) – Before Cheryl Leatherwood’s father died last year,his greatest pleasure was to sit out back of the family’s Skipperville home and watch the hummingbirds in flight, fighting each other for nectar and territory.

It was the one activity his failing health allowed him.

After his death, the family began cleaning out a garage where he stored a variety of items. That’s where Cheryl Leatherwood came across his collection of glass bottles – cobalt blue milk of magnesia bottles, old Dr. Pepper and Nehi drink bottles and a Five Points Soda bottle from Clio, Ala. Instead of throwing them out, Leatherwood decided to use the bottles for a special piece of garden art – a bottle tree.

“He would love it,” she said. “My daddy was raised a tenant farmer’s son, so this kind of folk art was right up his alley.”

Bottle trees, referred to by some as “haint” trees, have evolved into art for Southern gardens but have a history that may go back as far as glass
itself.

History and bottle tree buffs believe the use of bottle trees may have come out of Africa or even ancient Arabia (think, genie in a bottle). People
would place the bottle trees outside the entrance of their homes to trap evil spirits. The most common thought is the spirits could not resist the
lure of the bottles as the sun shone through them.

The spirits would enter the bottles and become trapped. Blue bottles were believed to be the most powerful in trapping the spirits. And if you’ve ever heard the eerie howl of wind blowing over an open bottle, you might understand why someone would think such a tree trapped spirits.

The idea of bottle trees spread to Europe and eventually to North America by way of African slaves.

Bottle trees are simple creations in their most basic sense. A tree – often a crepe myrtle – is stripped of foliage and most of its branches. Bottles
are slipped over what branches remain with their necks facing the tree’s trunk.

Today, people use a variety of colored bottles – green, red, blue, brown – and even clear bottles. As an alternative to an actual tree some people use a piece of wood with long nails driven into it or simply drive metal rods into the ground around an old stump. But there are a number of online companies that provide the base of a bottle tree welded from metal rods.

They’ll even sell you the bottles if you don’t have your own.

Leatherwood wanted something different. She wanted something that flowed, so she turned to artist Ronald Godwin of Brundidge, Ala. It was only the second request Godwin has ever had for a bottle tree.

Godwin said he tried to design the bottle tree with the placement of the bottles in mind and how they will accent the metal sculpture.

“I don’t do anything that looks traditional,” Godwin said.

His creation became a tribute to Leatherwood’s father. Metal rods twist to form the shape of a hummingbird.

It was a perfect fit, Leatherwood said.

The bottles and the metal itself shine in the sun.

“It is glorious in the sunlight the way it reflects off the polished metal,” Leatherwood said. “… I love the idea of something being in Southern culture and heritage and bringing it to today and bringing it with an artistic touch.”
___

Information from: The Dothan Eagle, http://www.dothaneagle.com

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

AP-CS-11-01-09 1312EST

ATLANTA (AP) – Curtis Richardson hops around the front parlor of the 140-year-old house, animatedly recounting the enchanting tales of Brer Rabbit and Brer Wolf.

The elementary school students in the room shriek with delight as he huffs and puffs, stomping around the Wren’s Nest, the very house where newspaperman and author Joel Chandler Harris brought the mischievous characters to life based on stories he heard from slaves during the Civil War.

“I smell a rabbit!” Richardson booms in a deep bass voice for the wolf, making the children laugh.

Down the hall in an office sits Harris’ great-great-great grandson, Lain Shakespeare, a spunky 26-year-old who took over the failing museum three years ago and revived it from near closure using social networking Web sites Twitter and Facebook and a blog.

It was quite a tall order for a kid who grew up in a family that mostly shunned the museum because of its long-standing practice of not allowing blacks to visit, a policy that ended in 1984 when Shakespeare was a baby. Piled on top of that painful history is the controversy surrounding Harris’ work _ a white man profiting off stories he took from slaves and spreading what many consider to be an unflattering caricature of Southern blacks.

“It’s an uphill battle, to say the least,” Shakespeare said sitting in his Wren’s Nest office, which was once the bedroom of Harris’ mother. “We’re letting people know the full story, instead of the story that’s been told by other people. We talk about it. We don’t sweep it under the rug.”

He even poses questions on his blog like “Is Uncle Remus racist?” and invites readers to respond honestly. In one post, he wrote of a Girl Scout leader who wanted to bring her racially diverse troop to visit Wren’s Nest, but was “met with dead silence” when she suggested the field trip to parents.

That friction and controversy is exactly what Shakespeare hopes will bring visitors to the front door of the mustard-colored home with the stained glass windows in Atlanta’s mostly black southwest neighborhood. That, and fond childhood memories of hearing stories about Uncle Remus and the Tar Baby in the briar patch.

So far, the strategy seems to be working.

He’s tripled the number of annual visitors to about 15,000 in just three years. The Facebook page has more than 500 members, and nearly 400 people follow the museum’s Twitter feed.

Shakespeare raised enough money when he first took over in 2006 to get the museum out of the $113,000 of debt owed to 19 creditors. Since then, he and his staff of three have raised enough to complete $190,000 in restoration and repairs to the aging house, which is named for the wrens that nested in the mailbox while Harris lived there.

“Before we were this sleepy little house museum on the wrong side of town,” Shakespeare said, smiling. “But now people know who we are.”

Inside the house is a charming collection of Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit memorabilia nestled among the original furniture and rugs that were in the house when Harris died in 1908. Book shelves are full of first editions of Harris’ 185 Uncle Remus tales, which have been translated into more than 40 languages.

In one corner hovers a stuffed owl given to the Harrises by President Theodore Roosevelt, who was a fan of the Uncle Remus stories and befriended the shy Harris, inviting him to the White House. In another room are two dummies donated to the museum by Walt Disney in 1946 after the movie Song of the South was released based on the Uncle Remus stories.

Harris’ bedroom is the only room in the house that hasn’t been restored, following a rule set in place when the museum opened in 1913 that the room be left largely untouched. His hat and glasses sit on a table in the corner next to his typewriter.

Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia, in 1845, though for years he was thought to be three years younger because he lied about his age to avoid fighting in the Civil War. He dropped out of school at age 17 to work near his hometown on Turnwold Plantation, where he met the slaves that would spark his love for African-American folklore and the tradition of storytelling among Southern blacks.

He also learned the newspaper business at the plantation, setting type and writing for “The Countryman,” one of the largest circulation papers in the Confederacy during the war.

Harris worked for a handful of newspapers across the South after the war before settling at the Atlanta Constitution, where he was associated editor for nearly 25 years. It was there he first began writing his Uncle Remus stories, which were released in 1880 in book Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings.

The stories were an instant hit, capturing readers across the globe. The tales were the first in American literature to give human characteristics to animals and were unique because of the heavy dialect in which Harris penned the tales. Harris is also credited with revolutionizing children’s literature, which had never before seen anything like Brer Rabbit and Brer Terrapin.

Still, black authors like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker – who was born in Harris’ hometown of Eatonton – have denounced the author and say he stole the stories unjustly. And other plantations, like the Laura Plantation near New Orleans, say that the stories started there and that Harris simply adapted them, showing the deep roots these stories had in Southern folklore.

For Curtis Richardson, who is one of several regular storytellers who perform at the Wren’s Nest, being black in a museum that celebrates such a controversial body of work can be tough. Richardson said he refused to tell Harris’ version of Tar Baby stories until he researched their roots back to West Africa and the Caribbean. Now he tells the older versions as a way to honor the stories’ heritage and skip the modern associations with racism.

“It had connotations of black folks being slow,” Richardson said standing on the porch of the Wren’s Nest on a recent rainy afternoon. But the older African stories are “easier to tell, and I can live with it then.”

___

If you go:

WREN’S NEST: 1050 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd. SW, Atlanta; http://www.wrensnestonline.com/ or 404-753-7735. Open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Adults, $8; children, $5; seniors and students, $7.

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-CS-10-28-09 2115EDT

For a certain kind of crafter, nothing pushes their buttons like, well, buttons.

And among button collectors, vintage buttons appear to be a favorite find. While a few button stores still exist – Tender Buttons in New York City is notable – the Internet now provides a plethora of online stores for button shopping.

Still, many button aficionados prefer the hunt: chasing down buttons the old-fashioned way – at flea markets and garage sales.

“Most of the people who know me know that if there’s a scent of buttons in the air, I will follow it,” said Carol Schneider, a publishing executive in New York City.

In her spare time, Schneider crafts scarves, children’s wear, and purses from old kimonos and vintage fabric. Her handmade goods often require accenting, which is where the perfect button comes in.

“That’s one of the most pleasurable parts of (my designs). It’s the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae,” said Schneider. “It’s the last part of the project.”

Schneider keeps to the lower-cost vintage buttons, scouring East Coast flea markets and visiting shops like Tender Buttons. “The fun of it for me is going somewhere and not caring if it’s a valuable, old button or if I just love it,” she said.

On the other coast, Carol Cienna sells buttons online when she’s not working the parking entrance at the Los Angeles Dodgers’ home baseball games. She’s been at it about a dozen years, and she knows buttons: antique, vintage and new.

Dealers generally agree that antique buttons are those made before 1917, when more buttons began to be mass-produced, Cienna says. Those that date after 1917 are considered vintage up to about 20 years ago – but this is hotly debated. Some dealers think vintage needs to be older than 20 years, while others maintain that construction and quality decide the classification, Cienna said.

Most new buttons are of an entirely different quality, and nearly all are plastic or glass.

“If you sit them side by side you’ll see the difference,” she said.

Vintage buttons can be difficult to date, she said.

A good one can cost as little as $4.

Cathie Filian uses a lot of buttons in the crafts she shares on her DIY Network show, Creative Juice. Her fondness for buttons began as a child when older relatives would give them to her by the handful. Women such as Filian’s grandmother would clip beautiful buttons from worn-out garments and store them in metal tins or glass jars, much to the elation of crafters and collectors who find them at garage sales today.

“That preservation nature … we have so many fabulous buttons with us today as a result,” Filian said.

Both Cienna and Filian caution against using a vintage button in a way that would destroy its integrity.

“Think about crafts that don’t have to be glued, so they can be reused,” said Filian.

Some suggestions: in a bridal bouquet, mixed with new buttons, as the toggle on a purse, added to dishtowels or quilts, or sewn into a shadow box for displaying. Filian also suggests clipping boring buttons off a new sweater and sewing on vintage ones.

“They just don’t make the buttons the way they used to,” she said. “Vintage buttons have such grace and elegance and spunky humor … they were shaped like tools, or animals. They were button mad.”

Cienna thinks vintage buttons are cheaper than the newer imitations sold in fabric stores. She recommends snooping among the dealers’ “poke boxes” at button shows; these jumbles of buttons usually sell for $1 apiece.

“You graduate very quickly in button collecting,” Cienna said. “At first you’re happy with bags of cheap buttons, but pretty soon the rare ones catch your eye … before you know it, a collector is specializing.”

___

On the Web:

http://www.diynetwork.com

http://www.carolschneiderdesigns.com

http://www.vintagebuttons.net

http://www.bellabuttonauctions.com

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-ES-09-23-09 1329EDT

 

You probably didn’t realize, when you put an ornate old picture frame next to the sleek Pottery Barn sofa in your living room, that you had your finger on the pulse of America’s design culture.

But you did.

What some interior designers call “transitional” decorating – artfully mixing contemporary pieces with vintage ones – is “the No. 1 featured style in magazines like House Beautiful, and in Elle Decor on a fine level, and in Cottage Living,” says interior designer Mallory Mathison.

It’s a trend that seems tailor-made for 2009. It works in any room, and helps you get style mileage out of things you already own or buy secondhand. It’s also environmentally friendly and practical to use older items in otherwise contemporary rooms.

“There is something to be said about a well-made, 50-year-old piece still doing its job in your present home,” says designer Brian Patrick Flynn.

“A lot of older things were just made better. But mixing those quality older pieces with something new gives them a fresh look.”

Another money-saver: The look can be easily tweaked and ages beautifully, unlike all-modern or all-traditional rooms. “If everything is brand new and matchy-matchy,” Flynn says, “your home will look like a catalog or a showroom and appear flat or dated.”

Designer Janine Carendi agrees: “Interiors that do not age well,” she says, “are those that are designed without any reference to other styles.”
Mixing old and new has its challenges, of course. But it can be done just as easily and more affordably than sticking with one style. “Contemporary is hard to pull off without looking cheap if you don’t have very fine things,” Mathison says. “And traditional can get old and staid if you don’t have very fine pieces also.”

Another bonus: This approach is all about personal expression.

“I have never come across a client who is one-dimensional,” Carendi says. “And interiors should reflect their experiences, tastes, travels and personalities. Mixing old and new is a way to achieve this.”

Sounds appealing. But how do you create an eye-catching combination of old and new, rather than a jumbled hodgepodge of conflicting styles?

TEXTURE, SCALE AND SHAPE

“It doesn’t matter how many old or new pieces are mixed together, but rather how it’s done,” says Flynn, whose trademark style is creatively combining the two. “A muted, traditional sitting room can be totally updated with one piece of bold modern art. On the flip side, a super-minimalist modern space can be given that unexpected touch of traditional with a crystal chandelier hanging above a sleek dining table.”

One good tactic is using contrasting textures, like smooth and rough or shiny and matte. “If your new pieces and old pieces all have the same or similar textures, the room will fall flat,” Flynn says. “If your new sofa has the same type of upholstery as an old ottoman, break it up by introducing a new texture with throw pillows.”

“In my old loft, I paired a sleek 1960s vinyl sofa with rustic barn door window shutters, a gigantic traditional brass chandelier sprayed red, chrome 1970s club chairs and a super plush kelly green shag rug. It worked well because it was balanced and had a collected look. The different styles were all united through color and scale.”

You’re aiming for contrast, but not cacophony. “I would not mix more than a few styles,” says Carendi, but the percentage of old versus new is up to you. “It depends on your concept. Is the room meant to be more traditional? Then use more antiques. And vice versa.”

Apparently, size matters. “Ensure that the proportions of the furniture do not fight and that the size of one does not overwhelm the other,” she says. “Look at the individual shape of each piece.”

WHERE TO DO IT

Mixing old and new can work in any room, Carendi says, “even nurseries.”

For bedrooms, says Flynn, “I like to go new with the actual bed and bedding, but pair those with old side tables and accessories. The sleek, tailored look of a new bed with aged furniture and accessories makes a beautiful combination.”
For dining rooms, he says, try “rustic farm tables paired with clean modern seating.”

STYLE STRATEGIES

One easy approach, says Mathison, is grouping several of the same items from different eras. “Hang five mirrors on a wall,” she says, “maybe an old one from your grandmother, an old one from a flea market, a new one from Pottery Barn … It looks like a lot of thought and design went into it.” You can do the same with pieces of china or other types of items.

Old lighting fixtures or lamps from flea markets (or your attic) can bring cool contrast to an otherwise modern room. “Just have them painted, rewired, or get new lampshades,” Mathison says.

You can even do a mix of old and new within a single item: Take a traditional piece of furniture, perhaps something Queen Anne or Chippendale, and have it reupholstered in a bold geometric print or brightly colored solid.

You may want to spend a few days or weeks tinkering with the final design. And you can always adjust it periodically.

How do you know when you’ve struck the right balance?

“The best way to keep it looking good is to plan from the beginning,” Mathison says. “If you’re hitting antique malls, it’s good to go with an idea in mind, rather than just buying what you see.”

But in the end, she says, trust yourself: “It’s really about pulling together things you love.”

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-ES-09-08-09 1006EDT

MANISTIQUE, Mich. (AP) – Carving fish decoys started out as just a hobby for Manistique resident Walter Welch, but it’s turned out to be much more than that. Welch’s pastime brings peace and tranquility to his life and allows him to connect with others.

Welch, 74, has been seriously making decoys for about 25 years, although he experimented with them long before that. He was 12 when he made his very first decoy.

“When I was a kid, me and my brother used to go spearing on the river and we used to make our own fish decoys,” he said. “Sometimes you’d get lucky and make a good one, and sometimes it wouldn’t turn out that great.”

Making decoys requires precision and care. Welch uses a band saw to cut a piece of basswood, which he said is a less grainy and porous type of wood. He then carves the wood into the desired shape and sands it down until it’s completely smooth.

He attaches fins cut from aluminum, then pours lead into the bottom of the fish. The amount of lead has to be just so, since the weight of the decoy and the way it floats depend on it. Welch said his grandson helps him test the decoys to make sure they float the right way.

“When you put it in the water, it has to lay flat,” said Welch, as he demonstrates by dangling a decoy in a plastic tub of water. The decoy dips just slightly, up and down, under the water, just like a fish when it’s swimming.

After it’s finished, Welch carves his trademark in to the bottom of the decoy: the letters W.W.

Welch’s decoys are used in darkhouse spearfishing, a type of ice fishing. Darkhouse fishing involves a spear and a fishing line tethered to a decoy. The decoy is dangled in the water to lure fish under a large hole cut in the ice.

Some buy Welch’s decoys just for decoration, but others buy them because they work. Welch said he’s had many satisfied customers who have shared their success stories, telling him they’ve caught more pike with his decoy than with any other.

“I guarantee all my decoys,” Welch said. “If it doesn’t work, I’ll give you your money back. I’ve never gotten one back and I’ve never had a complaint.”

Welch began selling his decoys when his friends and family, who were impressed with his work, encouraged him to make a business out of it. Soon, Welch and his wife Darlene began attending craft shows, selling hundreds of decoys. In a year, Welch would make up to 400 of them.

One of his decoys was even featured in a book: The Modern Fishing Lure Collectibles, which also told a little bit about Welch himself. Increasingly, people began asking about Welch’s decoys, and he and Darlene started selling them on the Internet – a successful but short-lived endeavor.

“It got to be a hassle,” Welch said. “I just enjoy making them. I don’t give a doggone if we make a dollar. I love going to craft shows and talking to so many different people. People don’t always buy my fish, but they like to ask how I make them and I enjoy telling them all about it.’

“In the wintertime, I’ll sit down and just carve a little bit while Darlene cuts the fins out. We work together a lot. It’s so much fun. I love it.”

___

Information from: Daily Press, http://www.dailypress.net

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-CS-08-31-09 1134EDT

FEASTERVILLE, Pa. (AP) – Don’t talk to Russ Snyder about the Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3 or Microsoft Xbox 360.

For Snyder, there is nothing like the sound and feel of a classic electromechanical pinball machine.

“They’re fun to play,” he says simply.

But there is more to it than that, he adds. Playing pinball connects people of a certain age – the baby boomer generation – to a bygone era, when pinball machines lined the walls of arcades on boardwalks along the New Jersey shore and nearly every soda shop, corner store and bowling alley had at least one.

“People say, ‘I played such-and-such a machine at my school or at my steak shop’ and they really have a sentimental attachment to them,” said Stacy Snyder, Russ’ wife.

For more than a decade, the Snyders have earned a living helping people recapture that feeling through the business they’ve named Pinrescue, based in Feasterville, less than 20 miles northeast of downtown Philadelphia.

Like many other businesses across the country that perform vintage pinball machine restoration full time or part time, the Snyders buy 1960s and ’70s pinball machines, rebuild or recondition them and sell them. They also repair machines for customers around the country who spend hundreds of dollars just to ship them to Feasterville for work.

“They find us because of the Internet,” said Russ Snyder, referring to their business Web site, pinrescue.com. We’re fortunate because we get to pick and choose what we want to buy. We get four or five calls every day,” about buying machines, he said.

If the calls come from a drivable distance – typically from Washington to Boston – and the machines sound ripe for refurbishing, the Snyders inspect them and decide whether to buy.

They said they spend from a few hundred dollars up to about $1,000, depending on the condition, and sell them later for anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000.

A mechanical overhaul can take about 30 hours. If the cabinets that house the parts need to be reconditioned, the job can take up to about 100 hours. Russ Snyder does most of the jobs himself, but contracts out some of the cabinet work.

Russ Snyder started working on pinball machines in the 1990s as a hobby. He previously worked on IBM Selectric typewriters, until they became obsolete. He also sold Steelcase office furniture. Friend and customer Bob Loring, of Cherry Hill, helped launch a Web site for the pinball business in 2002.

“Everything exploded on the Web,” said Loring, a pinball hobbyist who now works part time for the Snyders. “The first day the Web site launched, they had 150 hits. That’s a huge response and within a week their first sale came in from the Internet advertising. Within a year, their business quadrupled.”

Russ Snyder said the business has a waiting list for some specific pinball machines from customers who are trying to track down the same games they played as children.

Loring said the business has succeeded because it launched its Web site and Internet marketing efforts just as baby boomers were reaching the point where they had the discretionary income to indulge in the hobby.

“The kids can compete with their fathers,” Stacy Snyder said. It’s the one game “the dads may be able to beat them on.”

Russ Snyder reconditions the machines in a workshop at his home. He said he sells an average of three or four per month, more around the holidays and fewer in the first few months of the year. On weekends, he also has a regular booth at an antiques market in

Lambertville, N.J., just over the border 20 miles north of Feasterville.

In addition to the machines, he sells service contracts and warranties on his work.

____

On the Net:

Pinrescue pinball restoration: http://www.pinrescue.com/

___

Information from: http://www.phillyburbs.com/

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-ES-08-23-09 0002EDT

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ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE

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LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) – Each strike of the hammer creates and molds the iron into the vision of blacksmith Patrick Stenson, giving each piece the unique markings of the artist.

Custom ironwork can be found everywhere, both old and new, in Louisiana. Modern ironwork is usually mass-produced and fabricated. Old World techniques of bending and forging metals into architectural adornments and structures are rare.

It seems fitting that a local business continuing the Louisiana tradition of custom ironwork would employ some Old World charm in its team of artisans.

Drawn to Southwest Louisiana by construction jobs, Stenson landed on the doorstep of Custom Ironwork by Josh.

Stenson apprenticed for three years under an Old World master blacksmith in Germany. This training made Stenson’s engagement at Custom Ironwork by Josh an easy decision for the owner, Josh Guillory.

At Custom Ironwork, Stenson works with both Old and New World techniques. Following designs, Stenson uses a gas oven to heat and forge iron. Modern machines make his trade slightly easier but allow him to create the designs.

Stenson’s favorites are brass roses complete with stems and leaves. He has incorporated the roses into designs, giving a creative touch to an assortment of iron structures.

Stenson’s devotion to his craft continues into his weekend. He has set up an outdoor workshop at Lloyd’s Country Store in Westlake, La. In this workshop, Stenson uses the heat from a coal fire stoked with a piece of antique equipment he salvaged. Using hammers and tongs made by his own hand, he fashions candlesticks, coffee tables and other items, preserving the Old World technique.

___

Information from: American Press, http://www.americanpress.com

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-CS-08-08-09 0014EDT

 

PEORIA, Ill. (AP) – More than 3,000 antique tools sit in storage at Peoria’s Sommer Park, waiting for their turn to share a bit of history.

Everything from the leather awl to the carver’s scorp is represented in the collection – a donation from Bernadette Fugate, a widow in Fairbury whose late husband collected each piece.

“I’ve worked with antique tools a lot, and this is one of the most comprehensive collections I’ve ever seen,” said Keith Aeschleman, a park volunteer. “There’s something in there from just about every trade. It is amazing, the collection that man had.”

The collection is so large, in fact, that the park’s staff can’t even display it all at the same time, instead opting to bring out selected pieces for each showing.

The tools, some of which are more than 150 years old, are on display Sunday afternoons as part of Sommer Park’s Pioneer Days, a monthly, living historical reproduction of life in rural Peoria during the mid-19th century.

Park intern Tommy Wallenfeldt helped clean and catalog the massive collection of tools, selecting the pieces that make the cut for the displays. He says the collection is especially popular with older visitors.

“It really resonates with their past experiences,” Wallenfeldt said. “They say, ‘Oh, my dad used to use one of those!’ You’ve got people smiling, having a good time on a Sunday . . . even with a tool exhibit.”

One recent park visitor was more interested in the nearby blacksmith demonstration, which he said reminded him of growing up poor in India.

“I can relate to that. I’ve seen all of that when I was a young man,” said 86-year-old Peoria resident Roy Storey, who said he was raised in an orphanage in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains.

“There was no electricity. Everything was made by fire,” Storey said. “In fact, I even tried it myself. … It didn’t turn out very well.”

Storey wasn’t the only one interested in the blacksmith, however.

Nine-year-old Cassie Newell of Morton said she enjoys learning about history since reading the stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder, popularized by the television show Little House on the Prairie.

“It’s really fascinating, I think,” Cassie said. “I really like the blacksmith.”

Her parents, Dean and Meg Newell, brought Cassie and her brother Dylan, 12, to Pioneer Days to learn and spend some family time together.

“It doesn’t hurt that there’s such beautiful weather,” Dean Newell said, looking upward to the deep blue sky.

“It would be pretty rough if it was as hot as it usually is this time of year.”

Dylan got a firsthand reminder of how July usually feels, however.

Helping blacksmith Tony Klein by pumping the bellows that blow air into the bright orange coke fire, Dylan worked up a sweat right next to the hot stone hearth where the wrought iron is heated until it glows.

“It was hard work,” Dylan declared afterward, saying he wasn’t quite up to the job of blacksmithing.

“Not right now,” he said.

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-CS-08-04-09 0420EDT