Hand Tools

Residents of a block in the Wissinoming section where homes are sinking into an old creek bed braced for the demolition of seven rowhouses, set to start this morning, as city officials tried to calm fears and paramedics monitored homeowners' blood pressure. A contractor hired by the Rendell administration was set to begin work at 9 a.m. on the first of seven rowhouses on the 6100 block of Hegerman Street that city engineers have said could collapse at any time. Workers for Winslow Demolition will not wield a wrecking ball or explosives, Robert Solvibile Sr., first deputy commissioner of the city Department of Licenses and Inspections, said yesterday.

If Michelangelo had used a roller, he could have finished the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in a weekend instead of six years. If Roy Underhill used a power tool once in a while, he'd finish his woodworking projects in less than half the time. But Underhill isn't a "more-power" kind of guy, as anyone who watches his weekly PBS series, The Woodwright's Shop, will tell you. Underhill rarely uses a tool that wasn't around when Noah built the ark. "Not true," Underhill said with a laugh.

ON SUNDAY, Veterans Stadium will have its last (regular season) hurrah when the Phillies take on the Atlanta Braves. The last time the Phillies closed an old home field, on Oct. 1, 1970, chaos ensued and the scheduled events were canceled thanks to a few thousand morons who tore the place apart. Some might have been drinking before the game, which was at night. From what I have been told, security will be tighter than Shania Twain's corset, so, as a season ticket holder, let me ask those who are coming to do three things: First, please don't drink any beer or liquor that morning.

In the auction business they'd call this first item a "short notice," as this is scheduled for 3 p.m. today out in Spring City. In addition to an array of china, glassware, antiques, household furnishings, fishing boats and motors, auctioneer Ken Reed will sell a lifetime collection of antique advertising items, including paper, cardboard, tin and porcelain signs, tip trays, banks, tins, thermometers, product literature, games and calendars....

If you were starting a home workshop and you had accomplished very little in the way of doing it yourself, which basic tools should you purchase, assuming you had to watch your budget? We recently tried this question on some friends who are fairly handy at fixing and making things. Everyone agreed on two of the tools that would be required: you could not get by, it was said emphatically, without a hammer and a screwdriver. No argument there. Even if you never contemplated a home workshop or planned to repair anything, a hammer and a screwdriver are needed whether you own a house or rent an apartment.

Three days of sales will offer collectors Hummel figurines, Mickey Mouse figures and many of the worldly possessions of a Montgomery County "outdoors man. " The man is Chuck Berry, who has sold his farm near Elverson and who, according to auctioneer Ken Reed, is "with much reluctance" allowing the liquidation of the farm's furnishings at a sale beginning at 10 a.m. today. Among the sporting items to be sold are several firearms, including a Belgian-made Browning superposed 12-gauge lightning-trap shotgun and a 760 carbine 306 pump.

What: Oxo swivel-blade vegetable peeler. Manufacturer: Made in Taiwan for Oxo Good Grips, Terre Haute, Ind. Where: Williams-Sonoma. Price: $6. What: Peelz-It swivel-blade vegetable peeler with ceramic blade. Manufacturer: Made in France for iSi Basics, Pine Brook, N.J. Where: Fante's Price: $15.99 For years, I've used a cheap swivel-type, double-bladed vegetable peeler that I bought in a grocery store. It has peeled bushels and bushels of vegetables, and has survived countless trips through the dishwasher.

It's spring, but before the gardeners among you run out to get dirt under your fingernails and mud on your shoes, you might want to consider the equipment you use. If your hoes, spades, forks and trowels are strictly garden variety, perhaps you're ready for tools that can come out of the shed in style. High-design tools. Top-quality tools. Expensive tools. "Gardening is going through the kind of renaissance that cooking went through 10 years ago," said Carol Malcolm, director and buyer at Gardener's Eden, a Northern California retail and mail-order operation.

The availability and ease of power tools has transformed woodworking from the hobby of a few to the pastime of 20 million Americans, including 4 million women. These are the people you'll rub shoulders with this weekend if you venture to the annual American Woodworkers Show that starts today at the South Jersey Expo Center in Pennsauken. The money spent each year on acquiring the latest tablesaw or drill press is now measured in the billions. Once the novelty wears off, however, a lot of these space-age doodads spend more time collecting dust on the shelf than they do being used.

When Peter Lane retired from the Westtown School in 2004, admiring colleagues and students honored his service by planting a small grove of chestnut trees on the Chester County campus. The gesture was perfect. Although mathematics was the focus of his pedagogy, Lane taught woodworking as well. In his 39 years at Westtown, "Teacher Pete" introduced many to the language of numbers - "a humanity in its own right" - but he also introduced legions of students to the joy of working with their hands and using simple tools.

In his former life as a divorce lawyer, Luke Cabanel spent his days watching things fall apart. Now, as a full-time woodworker, Cabanel spends his time crafting pieces meant to endure. Cabanel focuses on the classics, such as Shaker-style furniture and Windsor chairs, made using the same techniques and many of the same kinds of tools used in the 18th century. In January, some examples of Cabanel's handiwork went on view at the Betsy Ross House, which commissioned from him a stool, colonial-style shelves, and a comb-back Windsor chair for a new interactive exhibit that features "Betsy" working in her upholstery shop.

Nothing elicits squeals of delight like a power tool, says do-it-yourselfer Shelly Halloran. As program director for the Philadelphia branch of Habitat for Humanity, Halloran frequently witnesses the excitement that accompanies someone's first attempt at correctly pounding home a nail or using a screw gun - doubled in intensity when the builder is female. Women Build, an international program offered through Habitat for Humanity, encourages women to get involved in construction work by providing basic hands-on training and organizing women-specific job sites.

More people are staying put in their homes, waiting out the downturn, and making cost-effective changes to their living spaces to add value and increase comfort. To lend a hand to those who want to do some of this work themselves, today's column will focus on the contents of the home toolbox. Need to know: As with any product on the market, you get what you pay for. In other words, if you buy cheap, that's exactly what you will get. If you are one of those people who are attracted to shiny and expensive things, you are likely to buy tools that you will never use. It is much wiser to have access to a few good hand tools and a couple of multipurpose power tools - either corded or cordless - than to own the high-end and expensive machinery that Norm Abram uses each week on his PBS program, The New Yankee Workshop.

What's in your toolbox? No matter where you live, no matter whether you own or rent, what you need to keep your home in good shape should always be close by, so you can find it when you need it. That doesn't mean you should attempt jobs that are beyond your abilities. But, really, if you want to hang a window shade, why not grab the drill and a hammer and do it yourself? Need to know: You get what you pay for: Buy cheap, get cheap. But if you're attracted to shiny and expensive things, you're also likely to buy tools you'll never use. Better to have a few good hand tools and a couple of multipurpose power tools than a workshop worthy of TV's master carpenter, Norm Abram.

When Peter Lane retired from the Westtown School in 2004, admiring colleagues and students honored his service by planting a small grove of chestnut trees on the Chester County campus. The gesture was perfect. Although mathematics was the focus of his pedagogy, Lane taught woodworking as well. In his 39 years at Westtown, "Teacher Pete" introduced many to the language of numbers - "a humanity in its own right" - but he also introduced legions of students to the joy of working with their hands and using simple tools.

He's called "Farmer Dave," to distinguish him from four other Davids at Weavers Way Co-op, but don't get all misty-eyed about tractors and grain silos. His farm is as unlikely and urban as they come - in Germantown, in the heart of the city. In January, David Zelov, 28, became the member-owned co-op's first full-time farmer, a sure sign that this free-spirited fixture in Mount Airy is getting serious about organic agriculture. Weavers Way has quadrupled the amount of land it's been cultivating for the last seven years - to a full acre off Washington Lane, about two miles from the co-op.

Each year, we suburbanites welcome spring with open windows that sweep out stale air and draw in balmy breezes, scenting our homes with nature's potpourri: freshly tilled soil, newly mown grass, and blossoming flowers. And the birdsong floats in like an impatient symphony whose musicians can't wait to strike up their instruments. But springtime's soothing music and gentle, warming winds are quickly disrupted by the daily cacophony of lawn mowers, leaf blowers and weed whackers that disturb the peace, sending us running to the windows to slam them shut.

The wooden sides of the coffin are still visible in the clayish soil where it was laid a century ago, but this coffin and the two next to it in the newly excavated trench are less than 2 feet long. These were infants or toddlers laid to rest in the Montgomery Square United Methodist Church cemetery, at the intersection of what are now Routes 202 and 309, sometime in the 19th century. The widening of the roads long ago hemmed in the church and its cemetery, and the congregation has sold the site to build, bigger and better, a few miles away, as churches have been doing for centuries.

ON SUNDAY, Veterans Stadium will have its last (regular season) hurrah when the Phillies take on the Atlanta Braves. The last time the Phillies closed an old home field, on Oct. 1, 1970, chaos ensued and the scheduled events were canceled thanks to a few thousand morons who tore the place apart. Some might have been drinking before the game, which was at night. From what I have been told, security will be tighter than Shania Twain's corset, so, as a season ticket holder, let me ask those who are coming to do three things: First, please don't drink any beer or liquor that morning.

The minute the weather warms up, gardeners are outside digging and planting. Next day, they're often aching and complaining. Gardening is great exercise, but you can overdo it, especially at the beginning of the season, says physical-medicine specialist Leonard Kamen. Kamen understands the problem. He is clinical director of the MossRehab Outpatient Center in Northeast Philadelphia and a backyard gardener at his home in Abington, where he gardens on a "typical suburban plot," growing tomatoes, herbs and other vegetables and flowers.