24 Comments

I love it! Pure, unadulterated 70s. Just missing the wood wall paneling. LOL, you know how hard I worked to rip all that stuff out of my house? Haha.. No disrespect – that’s definitely some fine workmanship and you could have made a killing selling that stuff here in Long Island back in the day, but it had it’s day. :-) That beautiful display cabinet sure has stood the test of time.

Bentlyj,

Cool projects. I had the habit of doing the same thing; if someone ask me if I could build it, I just said, sure………….Then I would go home and scratch my head and wonder how I was going to pull that off. LOL

I wish I had taken more pictures back then, but then again, we had to pay to have film processed so I was pretty stingy when it came to taking pictures.

I hope others will post some of their earlier work and tell us what inspired them.

Thanks for sharing and look forward to seeing more pictures.

Wow!
That puts you at about 40 years of experience…
Even back then you were talented.
It’s niece to see furniture from when I was born. I bet that TV in the picture was black and white.

Thanks Brian,
I believe there is some of that wood paneling your talking about behind the TV. lol

Thanks lanwater, TV probably was B&W. I moved out when I was 17 and supported my girlfriend and her mom. I rented a house and worked out of the garage to pay the rent and bills. That was 37 years ago…

Thanks Huff, I’m sure you have your share of oldies as well. I have a whole shoe box full of old stuff. Maybe I’ll go through them some day and scan them into My Pictures so that I could post some of them.

Here is a table. I remember cutting the curved legs with a jig saw cutting from both sides half way through at a time. Sanded the heck out of them. lol

Bently,

Flip flops look pretty professional. OSHA might get you for that!

Isn’t it fun to go through the old photos and reminisce? Another 35 years from now, people can go through their photos and be reminded of the wonderful particleboard furniture they assembled all by themselves. They will only be able to reminisce since all that furniture will be in landfills! Our styles may not always stand the test of time, but the quality of workmanship has made them keepers!

L/W

I was close enough :) 37 is an impressive number. It is more impressive you started to make a living at 17. My son doesn’t even know what he wants to be yet (:

LWL that was funny!

Bently,

I see you also had a flare for curves instead of just straight lines. A jig saw……….now that had to be a real test of patience at both the cutting and sanding! LOL Great job though.

How long had you been woodworking when you tackled that one?

lanwater, “My son doesn’t even know what he wants to be yet”
Yea, it’s a different world out there to today.

Huff, I love anything with a curve. (Straight is boring)
I’m not sure how long, within the first couple of years.
Back in those days, well lets just say it’s harder for me to remember things.
(did you see the hippie hair)? LOL

Game Table.

nice to see the evolution , ….good stuff . : )

Thanks Moment!

I have a thousand more, hope it’s not to boring. But this is the stuff I was building before I was able to open a shop. As crude and as simple as these projects were, these were the projects that taught me a lot about building.
My 1st chairs (you got to laugh) and table


Built some Light fixtures. (Thought I could start a lamp company at the time) lol


Little bit of furniture. Got to love 2×4′s and 4×4′s
(Was going to make a million selling these)

My 1st commissioned built-in

1st shop, mid 80’s.
(Note: still wearing flip flops) (Even had beepers)

When I opened my shop I was going to build computer desks. Computers had just come out and everybody needed a place to put them. I named my company CompuCab, (computer cabinets).
I built 1 desk unit for a computer. LOL Needless to say when there are bills to pay you take what ever work you can get and it turned out I was going to be a custom cabinet shop instead of a computer desk maker…

Nice to remenis and look at those old projects .
I have lots of old pics but none are on my computer and desks are a good part of them .
One thing I always point out is that I built more filing cabinets in those days then before the advent of the computer .
It was supposed to take us into the paperless society but everybody had to have a copy and the printer took care of that .

love the stories, the results, and the flipflops, of course!

Lots of cool projects,some do look very 70s like but still are well done.

Thanks Jim, for all the replies.
Yep 70’s, got to say I nailed it for being done in the 70’s.
I wonder if the stuff we all are doing today will be able to be said, that’s very 10’s :)

Bently,

I had fun looking through these photos again and thinking about “the good ol’ days.”

How about sharing some more with us?

L/W

“the tv was probably B&W” …. doesn’t that speak volumes!

Some really nice projects ,very good

Lots of great work, things have sure changed since the 70s LOL

You did a fantastic job making those , well done