Jim Thomas
Columns
August 07, 2008 09:25 AM
Jim Thomas
When it comes to mechanics, I rate an F. The F stands for failure.
Yes, personal skills related to tools such as wrenches, hammers, saws and screwdrivers are pitiable, even pathetic.
For example, should a tire go flat, I call a tow truck. Should a tap spring a leak, I call a plumber. Should a basement fuse blow, I call an electrician.
Should a clothesline collapse, I call my wife.
I even needed a neighbor’s help to install aluminum squirrel repellants on my bird feeders.
My abilities, associated with repairs, are intolerably bad.
The same goes for items to be assembled. I’m beat before I start.
Imagine then, an interview with someone so accomplished in work with wood and metal, he can construct things ranging from miniature steam engines to grandiose grandfather clocks.
Such was the challenge Friday, when I visited the home of Elmer Farthing, long-time Stouffville resident and master mechanic.
Mr. Farthing, 81, was born on the Markham-Pickering Townline, north of Green River, the son of Arthur and Marion Farthing.
At age five, his parents moved to Stouffville. He attended what is now Summitview Public School.
For more than 30 years, his father worked at Schell Lumber Ltd., on Edward Street, only a short distance from where the Farthing family lived. Elmer later resided on Charles Street, then, in 1950, moved to Rupert Avenue.
He and wife, Doris, marked their 61st wedding anniversary Aug. 2. They have a son, Bill, in Uxbridge, a daughter, Lois, at Musselman’s Lake, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Mr. Farthing says as long as he can remember, he has enjoyed working with machinery. This interest, plus his father’s association with wood, led to a life-long career.
“There’s a connection between the two,” he says.
It was only natural that, at 15, he joined the staff of Barkey Bros., machine shop operators north of Main Street.
Isaac Barkey saw in his young floor-sweeper, a skill that would eventually make him a shop foreman, a position he held for 23 years.
An additional step up the success ladder was assured the day he first sounded the firm’s noon-hour whistle, a signal heard round the town.
Mr. Farthing remained with Barkey Bros., later Stouffville Machine and Tool, for 45 years, retiring in 1987.
However, retirement wasn’t the end of an ambition.
Mr. Farthing would soon build his own shop, a sizeable structure containing two lathes, a drill press, air compressor, grinder and hacksaw.
That was the production side. Nearby, on the performance side, he hand-built two steam engines, two gas engines, a drag saw, sawmill and planer.
What made these machines so amazing was the fact none was built from a model or a plan, but out of the builder’s head.
“I’m continually changing things,” he says. “I’m never quite finished.”
“If I was ever done, there’d be nothing else for me to do.”
Each engine is beautifully hand-painted and runs like a top.
In the winter, he moves the entire operation into the basement of his home and transforms the performance side of the shop into a garage to accommodate the car.
While lathes, saws and engines typify Elmer Farthing the machinist, his skill doesn’t begin and end in a back yard shop. There’s more.
Against a wall of the recreation room stands a grandfather’s clock, the equal of which you will never see.
It’s made entirely of wood, including the gears. Even the bob, suspended from a wood stem, is white pine.
This magnificent timepiece took two winters to complete. To keep it ticking, double weights are pulled up once a week.
Everything’s made-to-measure.
Mr. Farthing has also crafted more than 25 wall clocks, most of which he’s given away.
Also unique is a TV table, built from the remains of the former Canadian National Railway station.
Elmer Farthing: machinist turned hobbyist; conventionalist turned perfectionist.
Jim Thomas is a Stouffville resident who has written for area newspapers for more than 50 years.