Mount Carroll woodworker keeps busy – he woodn’t have it any other way

MOUNT CARROLL — You won’t find Dave Smith using the latest and greatest gadgets in his woodworking shop. Neither will his hands be pecking away at a keyboard shopping online for state-of-the-art tools and machines.

The longtime Mount Carroll native likes to stick with what he knows: the ol’ reliables. Hand tools with some history in them, machines made to last — the kind of equipment that’s passed the test of time. Look around his shop and you’ll find tools forged in factories from iron and sweat, like his Yates American lathe. It’s a nearly century-old cast iron classic that turns back the clock — caked with sawdust, its paint chipped, a light switch rigged to run it, but it’s still going strong.

“I don’t have any high-tech stuff,” Smith said. “Everything is done by hand. They’re not perfect, but that’s the way you know they’re done by hand. I’m old, my tools are old, but we still make it work.”

After a long career in the construction business, Smith retired a few years ago, but the work just won’t quit. He owns Dave Smith’s Old Mill Workshop, named for a former grist mill located near his home, spending as much as six to eight hours a day at his garage shop when he can, crafting custom pieces.

He picks up from where nature left off. Trees give him the wood to work and Smith gives the lumber a new life. Among his handcrafted creations: charcuterie boards, chess boards and pieces, nature- and animal-themed decor, jewelry boxes, beautiful pieces made from burls, canes, and home and office accessories. They’re made with the same care, but no two pieces are alike. Waves of red in the grain of box elder boards, crimson creations from cherry wood, the stately look of black walnut — each piece has a distinctive look all its own. Some pieces are built from different kinds of wood, like a slice of the forest pieced together for people’s pleasure.

There’s no shortage of work waiting for Smith. By late January, he’d already have house trim, toy boxes and cat boxes for local humane societies on to-do list of customer orders, and that’s on top of the pieces he makes and sells at area craft shows, as well as being a regular vendor from June to October at the Mount Carroll Farmers Market.

Smith and his wife Jan, who runs a cavalier dog breeding business from their home, enjoy getting to meet other woodworkers at the shows and markets, and is happy to share his reliance on the ol’ reliables — no computer-controlled machines in his shop, just Smith-controlled.

“I like the socialization, going to town and talking to people,” Dave said. “A lot of people who do woodworking want to come and talk, and I’ve made some really nice contacts that way. If I make four of five dollars an hour from my time, I’m doing good. I’m not getting rich, but just getting pocket change out of it.”

For Smith, woodworking isn’t about making money. It’s about doing something he enjoys and staying active.

His home shop is just the latest in a long line of workplaces that have run the gamut during his career in construction, from dog houses to the top of Exelon’s Byron Generating Station nuclear power plant, a job he worked in 1979. Knee issues led him to retire from full-time work — and another knee issue recently sidelined him temporarily from climbing the couple of steps up to his home shop — but neither could dampen his desire to keep his creative mind spinning.

“I’m in the shop seven days a week if I can,” he said. “Sitting around is going to kill me. I’m not a sit-around person.”

Prior to his construction career, Smith taught high school woods and industrial arts classes during the late 1970s in Rock Falls. When the school upgraded its equipment, they didn’t have to look far to find someone to take the retired pieces off their hands. Smith bought some of it, pieces that are still in his shop today: “The jointer there, I gave them $15 for that and the only thing I ever changed were the blades,” he said. Another one of the machines: the Yates lathe.

He takes pride in taking care of his tools: If they worked decades ago, they can still work now, he said.

“It’s older equipment, like your grandpappy’s shop,” said Jan, who’s happy to see the joy her husband’s work brings him. “He works with old equipment and still manages to turn out great products. All of his stuff is unique and one-of-a-kind, he can make a birdhouse that can be sort of like somebody else’s, but never the exact same. The wood determines what he makes.”

Smith gets wood from both his own property and elsewhere, letting it sit for at least a year, to allow it to dry thoroughly; he tests it often to make sure the moisture content is suitable.

Smith also makes decorative pieces for his and Jan’s home, such as a lamp made from cherry burl, bowls and pots hollowed out from large branches, a grandfather clock, and a home bar.

“People come to me all of the time and tell me, ‘I want this built,‘” Smith said. “If you give me a picture, I can build it.”

Requests have come from both individuals and organizations. One of his recent projects was a set of benches for the indoor track at the Davis Community Center in Mount Carroll, using pieces of red fir wood from the old bleachers at the original high school building on Main Street.

“A great project that I enjoyed doing was for the community center in Mount Carroll,” Smith said. “They have an indoor walking track, which is really nice, and they asked me that it would be really nice if we had some benches around for people to sit on. I got a hold of the owner of the old high school in Mount Carroll, and the wood for the support structures were still there. I sanded them and got seven six-foot benches out of them to put around the track.

Though he smoothed things over when he built the benches, he was careful not to lose the lose the story behind them.

“They turned out nice. I wanted people to know that the wood was recycled and reused, because people like the history.”

As Smith takes care of his old tools, the old tools have taken care of him, he’s kept his love for woodworking going into retirement, and he continues to find new challenges and ideas that keep him active.

“I have stuff to do that keeps me busy all day long,” he said. “That’s the way I want it.”

Find Dave Smith’s Old Mill Workshop on Facebook, email davesmith9742@yahoo.com or call 815-291-8331 for more information on his work and appearances at local craft shows and markets.