My father was always making things. If he couldn't find the price or the features he wanted on the market, he did it himself. I wanted to go to a tech high school, but my parents persuaded me to go to the academic program to become a shop teacher. I dropped out and did some renovation work. Then I took up silversmithing, but it was a pretty thin living. I did some commercial jewelry repair, and then got into some very interesting work doing special effects for TV before CG came in. For my house, I made a wall that could be removed or installed in 5 minutes by two people, leaving almost no trace either way.
Then I decided to get serious, and studied engineering at the library before building the prototype velomobile seen in my picture. The integration of frame and suspension is still being written up 3 decades later, and it won a world championship. Then I made a few pedal-propeller drive units that also won races, but I didn't really enjoy fiberglass work, except when it was done. I made a set of aluminium parts for a boat, using a drill press, table saw and router. When they were taken in for anodyzing, the counter guy asked who had done the CNC work.
My work began to suffer when my eyes started needing more than one pair of glasses, and I got depressed before I figured out what the problem was. Now, I'm back to silversmithing as a hobby, but wondering how much longer I should maintain a shop. I have to live in the boondocks to afford one now, and maybe more people is what I need, rather than the option of doing a big project.