PORT CLINTON – Prior to COVID, Scott Hitchings would rise long before daybreak to make the 80-mile commute to his job as a machine repair machinist in Cleveland, where he would perform vibration analysis checks on multimillion-dollar machinery before trekking the 80 miles back home. COVID shutdowns ended his position, and now he spends his days making intricate wood and metal creations in his Port Clinton workshop.
“COVID terminated my job, but it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me,” Hitchings said. “Now, I just tinker in here.”
“Tinker” is a modest distortion of the work Hitchings does in his shop. He doesn’t glue bits of sawn wood into craft projects. He develops intricate designs for challenging creations, and he makes them on vintage machines he rebuilt and enhanced with his own hands.
“I like a challenge. If it doesn’t challenge me, I’m not interested,” he said.
The first machine he built was a 6-by-48-inch belt sander. Among the other machines in his shop include a 20-inch bandsaw and a 15-inch planer that came from the Port Clinton High School shop class…