Every Appalachian Boy Knew 40 Trades Before 15. Most Men Cannot Do One (I Was Paid for 5)

By fifteen a boy up here could do forty things with his hands, and nobody called any of them a career. They were just what you knew. I go through all forty in this one, one tool at a time, the way I learned them: the whetstone and what the steel is really doing, the axe handle off a hickory blank with a drawknife and a rasp, the awl and the waxed thread and why a diamond hole locks a stitch that a machine chain will not, the last and the shoe tacks, the froe and the maul for shingles, the shave horse, the basket and the hickory bark, the bee smoker and what the smoke actually does, the chair bottom in cane, the broom vise, the grafting knife, the trap and the stretcher board, the fleshing knife, the corn sheller, the sorghum skimmer, the apple butter stirrer and why the holes are not decoration, the whitewash brush, the crosscut saw and the raker tooth that does not cut, the scalding barrel and the scraper, the rendering kettle and the lard press, the grinder and the stuffer, the sausage, the salt box, the broadaxe, the chalk line, the sang hoe, the rasp and the nippers, the tongs and the hammer, the post hole digger and the tamping bar, the fence stretcher, the scythe and the snath and why the blade is peened and not ground, the seine, the cider press, the fid and the rope splice, the collar and the hame, the soldering iron, the glass cutter and the putty, the chimney and the flue, the auger, the plumb bob, and the trotline. Five of these forty put money in my pocket before I was old enough to drive. The other thirty-five were just expected. I tell you which five paid, what they paid, and why the rules nobody wrote down were the ones everybody kept. The video gives you the verdict on what is worth knowing. The manual gives you the method, step by step, with the measurements. https://burlsizemore.com