A Cut Above the Rest of Us.

There are some things people do that are so far beyond our normal experience that we have difficulty believing them possible.

On the June 8th 2009, Stéphane Mifsud broke the world record for holding breath under water. He lasted eleven minutes thirty five seconds.

When Usain Bolt runs his record breaking races, at times he's travelling at over twenty seven miles an hour.

Mars Curiosity was positioned beautifully for its landing on Mars, up to 155 million miles away from the Earth.

In Dover, Ohio, a guy called Earnest "Mooney" Warther carved wood and ivory into models of steam trains.

In the cold 1920 winter he worked in the parlour. His wife 'never said a word.'

 Now you may think this is exaggeration, but bear with me. Yesterday, following advice from someone we met, we visited the family museum, and came away awestruck - just as we'd been told we would be.

Just down the road from home.

Mooney was born in poor circumstances, with only a basic education, but that didn't stop him from achieving astonishing work.

(I'm reminded of James Brindley in England. Born in Derbyshire and with little formal education, he went on to build many of Englands canals.)

The small workshop he built. No lathe here, and the drill was used for knives.

Simple tools.

 A family man, Warther had to fit in his passion for carving around earning a living to support his children, so he built himself a workshop in his garden and rose at 3am almost every day - his carvings were done before he left for work in the local steel mill. He'd get around five hours a day done.

He loved steam trains, and his mission was to document in miniature the history of steam transport. To begin with, his working materials were mostly waste, old bones and damaged billiard balls. (This was at the beginning of the last century, when the balls were made of ivory.)

His masterpiece. (Video below.)

Now I know that so far this doesn't sound very special, but to see the life's work of this man is to be astounded. The craftsmanship, detail and skill with which these miniature engines were created is almost beyond belief.

This information is in Mooney's own handwriting.

Don't forget that there is no lathe in this man's workshop. The inlaid lettering on the bases is all cut by hand. The wheels turn with precision. Every model is to perfect scale - created from published plans of the original engines. He made hundreds of models. He gave away nearly a score of his early ones, because he wasn't happy with the quality of his work.

Railway engineers of the time couldn't fault this detailing.

Every project was completed before the next was started. Mooney used to say that to work on two would be like having two girlfriends; eventually you'd get mixed up, and then you'd be in trouble…

Every one a working wooden plier and they all fold back into one block of wood.

When young, a hobo he met showed him a pair of wooden pliers cut out of a single piece of wood. He figured out how to do it, and became so proficient that he could cut a working set in under ten seconds. He made thousands of these to give away, but his crowning glory was the tree he cut. there are 511 working pliers in this tree, all cut from a single, shaped, piece of wood. One mistake out of thousands of cuts and it would have been ruined. He saw this all in his mind's eye before starting work.

The work of an octogenarian.

The wheels go round too.

He decided to retire from model making when he was eighty, but then got bored, so started on his ivory models. Unbelievable!

In his hours of spare time, Mooney also designed and made knives. He made his own carving tools, with interchangeable blades.

He made his models using these tools.

Every blade had a job to do, and were all interchangeable.

As a result, the museum is part of a family knife manufacturing business, still run by his descendants.

Some things experienced leave a lifetime's lasting impression, and this little museum tucked away in Dover Ohio is one of those.



There's a little film with the man himself appearing here:

http://www.warthers.com/

If you want an idea of how difficult it is to land a spacecraft on mars:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=146903741

I'm sure you already know how difficult it is to run at 27 miles an hour, or hold your breath for over eleven minutes…