(lively music) - Miniature anvils and the tiny tools that go with them are part of the impressive skillset of Jack Mease of Lander.

We call him the Master of the Miniature.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

This is Wyoming Chronicle.

(lively music) - [Announcer] Funding for Wyoming Chronicle is made possible in part by, Wyoming Humanities enhancing the Wyoming narrative, to promote engaged communities and improve our quality of life and by the members of WyomingPBS.

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(guitar thrumming) - Jack Mease makes miniatures, anvils, firearms, cookware, even a steam engine.

(steam engine whirring) His tiny letter perfect replica of a 19th century ranch wagon has been shown in museums.

He had no model for it, no instructions, no pictures, just measurements and memory.

It took 2,000 hours to complete.

Every facet of the wagon copies the real thing, including the invisible inner workings of the hubs and brakes, details that no one else will ever see.

When he learned that the original full-sized wagons were built with 48 carriage bolts a piece, Jack looked for them in the minuscule size he needed.

He couldn't find any, so he made the bolts himself, including the threading and the nuts.

And when he couldn't find tools precise enough to make those little piece of bolts, he made those too.

Such as the talent and the precision, such as the dedication and the patience, such as the world of 91-year-old Jack Mease.

(bright music) There's almost nothing you can't build.

Is that safe to say?

- Well, people say, "Is there anything you can't make?"

And I say, "Money."

(Steve chuckling) (Jack chuckling) - Wyoming Chronicle met Jack a few days before Christmas inside his shop between Hudson and Lander.

It's an unforgettable workspace, jam-packed with materials, tools, machinery, books, pictures, workbenches, and example after example of his astounding finished creations.

The building we're in now, which is a spectacular shop in its way.

It's not the fanciest place, it's not the biggest, it's not the shiniest, but you use the heck out of it, don't you?

- Oh, yes, yeah.

My wife and I built the shop.

We didn't do the block work, but we did put on the roof and then finished the interior and so forth.

- There's this wagon, which I think is in the shot that we're looking at now of equipment like that.

Smaller things, there's a stove, you have knives, you have tiny anvils.

I can't even begin to name it all.

How long have you been creating these things, since you were a young man, I presume?

- I started making knives the first thing that I did.

And of course, they was rather the crude and as anybody would, beginners would be.

But I graduated doing a little finer work.

- How about these miniature or scale model scaled down objects that you made?

Can you remember the first one of those that you did, or the first type of thing you started doing?

- I had a friend named Don Layton, a real good machinist, and he made a miniature anvil.

And I saw it and I thought, "Well, I can do that."

So I made an anvil, and after I made it, I got to think of why not make the tools go with it?

And I did that, and then they just kinda gravitated in the- - Let's talk about if you're making an anvil, and it's only about this big.

What does it start with?

- Just a piece of steel.

- Piece of steel.

- Just a block of steel.

- [Steve] Mm-hmm.

- What's funny, a lot of people said, "Ain't that hard to make?"

And I said, "Oh, heck no.

I just cut away everything that don't look like an anvil."

- [Steve] You just leave the anvil.

- Yeah.

- There, yeah.

When you say you cut away, you're using a machine, a- - Yes, a milling machine.

- [Steve] Look at this.

Just incredibly precise.

- Yeah, and that- - Now, did you do your scale, your- - Yes.

- [Steve] Studying of a full-sized anvil, even for something like this?

- Well, anvils, there was all different size of anvils and they were sold by the pound, I think, but there was no real, they was more or less shaped the same, but they could be a lot of different sizes.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- I make 'em...

The block's kinda the scale like five to one but you figured that anvil and the length of the horn, the height and all that.

Blacksmith was working at the anvil.

top of anvil would come right to where my knuckles is right here.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- And then it was shaped where it was kinda sloped away from him when he hit a piece of red hot metal, the sparks would fly away from him.

- [Steve] Mm-hmm.

- And the farrier never discussed, told his helper, "It's so noisy in that shop."

If he wanted him to do a certain thing, he'd hit the anvil.

He's hammering certain tap would mean to do this and do that.

So they- - Signal him that one.

- Yeah, it was- - So if we blew this up to this big, it would be proportional and functional and- - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- You make a point of that.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- It's not a toy, it's a miniature.

Yeah.

- Yep, exactly.

Yeah.

- Yep, exactly.

- Jack, I don't think anything demonstrates what I'm gonna just go ahead and call your mastery of your craft and your art better than this or as well as this wagon does.

You told me you'd made a, you had an estimate of how many hours you had into it.

- I'm estimating at least 2,000 hours.

- Mm-hmm.

- And that's just by figuring up how long it took to make, say, one wheel, how much time it took to make these carriage bolts and the spokes and so on and so forth.

And like I said, 48 carriage bolts at 30 minutes per bolt.

Not counting the nut.

- And we're not even looking at those.

I mean, that's- - Yeah.

And then let's say it's 15 minutes per spoke and 48 of those, then you have to make the hub, which is rather involved to make all the cuts into the, for the spokes to fit into the hub and the bands on the hubs.

I took old shock absorbers and turned 'em down, and then I'd heat 'em onto my stove and press 'em on that hub, so they'd shrink to fit more or less.

- Wow.

- Same with the tires.

Once I got the wheels shaped and ready to put the tire on, I'd put it on the stove and get it as hot as the top of the stove would get it.

I'd put it on and beat it on real quick and then put it in water.

And that's what they call shrink the fit tire on your wheel.

- So these are... Not only then are you conceiving of the scale and the materials, but then you're almost creating these techniques that you're using.

As closeup videography reveals his meticulous craftsmanship, Jack fills in some of the details.

So including what you made was this nut?

- Yeah, I had to make- - And the threads.

- Square nuts, you had everything in them days was square nuts and I had to thread it and make the squared part on the head of the carriage bolt so it wouldn't turn in the wood when you tighten the nut.

And I think it averaged 30 minutes per bolt, not counting the nut.

- I would think at least that.

Just remarkable.

Once you made them, you used them.

- Yes, yes.

- You didn't make 'em just for the fun of it.

You made 'em, because that's what holds the thing together.

- Yes, and like I say, every piece on here, the tires, I had to make the tires out of a piece of pipe and turn 'em to the size.

Same way with the bands on the hub.

I used old shock absorber tubes to make the different bands for the hubs.

And of course, I had to inlay all the hubs for the spokes.

And there's six fellows, that's the wooden pieces here, that there's six fellows in here.

And I had to inlet, them so theyre supposed to go in.

Once I had the wheel shaped and ready, I put this tire on my wood stove and get as hot as I could get it, and I'd pound it onto the wheel, and then put it in water to cool it off right quick.

So it's a kind of a shrink to fit.

- Mm-hmm.

- And this piece here, where they put the foot, it was called a dashboard.

You still got a dash in the car.

- That's the dashboard.

- Yeah.

- I love these terms.

And this is another part of what you learned?

- Yes.

- And you were interested in that too.

What's this called?

I wanna use the right terminology as well.

You developed then some tools for that you had to have so that you could make the wagon.

And you have a couple of those here as well.

- Yes, this is a tapered reamer for tapering the hub.

Here's a partially made hub, but I had to drill the hole in the hub and then take tapered reamer and go in here and put the correct taper on that.

And then you got a thimble that goes in that.

So I had to make a reamer to taper the thimble.

And then on, this is the one for the thimble.

This one here, out on the end of here is a metal piece on the axle that's called a skeins.

And I had to make a tapered reamer for the skeins.

And that's all on the taper.

On the right side of the wagon, they had a right-hand thread.

On the left-hand side, they had a left-hand thread.

- And that's what you, that's what this one has.

- And that is going forward is trying to tighten the nut on it.

And this axle's on the front axle was what they call a gather or toe-in We call it toe-in.

So as long as you're going forward, that wheel is trying to go close toward the center of the wagon.

If a nut came off and you backed up for any distance, the wheel could fall off.

Or hit a rock, it would fall off.

(bolts clanking) And this is shock absorber tube that I would turn down, pressed onto the little hub, and there's different sizes, hub bands on that hub.

- I just continue to be impressed by the idea that, and if I'm we're looking at that hub, no one was gonna know that you'd actually threaded it.

- Yeah.

- The way that the wagonmaker would've.

But you knew, you wanted to do it right.

- Yeah, yeah.

I'd get articles or whatever and what I needed to figure out how to make everything authentic.

I found books that explained it.

I had a guy tell me one time, "What I know that I didn't learn from no dang book."

And I said, "Yeah, but how much do you know?"

I said, "I thought that's what they made books for us to teach us."

- Now also, because you're striving for authenticity you built and created things that the owner or the operator of this wagon would've had.

And I'm gonna show one of them here.

He had an ax, would've had one.

You made this.

- Yes, yes.

- In fact, there's your name on it, "Mease Made Lander Wyoming," it says.

It might have been a chuck wagon, they had to eat.

So here's a little dutch oven that you made as well with the handle, with the lid that comes off.

Beautiful, intricate stuff.

You made a set of skillets, (skillets clinking) and a plate, (skillet clanks) because that's what they would've had.

You made a coffee pot (paper rustling) with a lid.

- Eight cups of...

I've got the cup there and I measured it, it holds exactly eight cups.

The old trail driver cowboys all carried tin cups and so forth, and they would hang out on the saddle string on their saddle.

And a lot of times, the handle would get broke off.

So that's what happened to that cup.

The handle got broke off.

- So you even authentically broke off the handle, but that would've happened.

I'd be hard-pressed to say what the most impressive part of it is, but this might be it.

So included in the cook set that the wagon operator would've carried, is this tiny, tiny set of silverware, knives, spatula.

And you told me to be careful with these, and I am.

Forks.

- Forks.

And the old time forks was three-tine, they wasn't four-tine, like the modern forks.

- We'll just show the spoon, because... - The spoon is the hardest part to make in that.

- I wondered about that.

- It's not really a regular-shaped spoon.

It's more like a gravy's ladle or something on that order, but to make a spoon shape is- - Is tough.

- Yeah, it almost have to make a stamping mechanism to do that.

- How in the world would you make something like that?

What did you have to do?

- Well, I just took a piece of metal and ground it down and shaped it and drilled the holes in the handle.

I had to drill the holes in the handle before I heat treated, because once you heat treated, you cannot drill the holes, the drill wouldn't drill it.

But then I'd polish it back out and then I put the handles on made outta micarta, and I could put the rivets on there, and it wouldn't split the micarta when I run the rivet.

- So you must have had to go to a manufacturer to find rivets this size, right?

- No, I made them.

- You made those.

- Just outta wire, yeah.

- But here's a rivet maker you were telling us about.

- This is what I made, the rivets that goes in here on these standards.

And if I make a rivet, I put a piece of baling wire in there, and one side has got a bigger hole in the top of it.

I'd brad that and then push it back outta there and I'd put that through from the wood side and then on the metal side here, I could brad that and it wouldn't split the wood.

- You've always been just good at this kinda thing, good at picking it up?

- Well, it seemed like it, that comes easy for me.

I don't...

I guess it's a God-given, but I can sit down and think about something like that and it forms in my mind and I just go ahead and do it, so.

- For the wagon, for example, did you have a model that you were working from?

- No.

- A picture or- - I had a few pieces of a wagon in the backyard, but I just went around the country and would look at different wagons.

- Look at 'em.

- And measure 'em, and so forth.

And of course, there was no two wagons was alike, except - even the factory wagons.

Studebaker was one of the biggest wagonmakers and one of the best wagonmakers.

But, John Deere made wagons, but there was a lot of individual wagonmakers, so there was all types of...

So it's just, I'd measure this one, measure that one, and come up with a formula I wanted.

- So when I think about it, so there's some mathematics involved in this too?

- Oh, absolutely.

- Measuring, making sure you get the scale.

- Oh, yeah, yeah.

- Which is crucial to it.

- Unless, you're into it, you don't realize how complicated it is to just build a wheel.

It's rather complicated till you get into it.

You don't realize what is involved.

And a lot of the hardware I made outta welding rod, heat it and flatten it out and do whatever I needed to shape it to.

- So when you flatten it out, I mean, so we're getting into kind of blacksmithing almost?

- Blacksmithing, yes.

- Another of your skills.

- Yeah, yeah, the fifth wheel is all on, turns on metal and that's all has to be especially shaped.

- Mm-hmm, you found you liked doing this kinda thing?

- Yes, I'd stay up till midnight a lot of times and get up and go to work eight in the morning, yeah.

- What kinda work were you doing through the years?

- I was working at U.S. Steel when I was making the wagon.

- I see, yeah.

So it was a way for you to get away from that, to occupy your mind, occupy your hands, use your brain.

You had the patience for it.

That must be a huge part.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

For some reason, I can do that, but I can't sit out there and fish for five minutes if I don't get a bite.

- Yeah.

- And then this, if you can see here this little, what they call stay chains, I made all of those outta music wire.

- You made the chains.

(wood thuds) - And I had to make a tool to make the chains in which I got the tool here that I made the chains outta the music wire.

Once I wrapped 'em on there and I'd cut 'em with a hacksaw blade, then put 'em together and then weld 'em back together.

- [Steve] So link by link by link.

- Yeah.

- You made the chain.

- Yeah.

- That's why.

- That was to keep, if you start a new horse and the old horse started and the young one didn't, you wouldn't pull a young horse back into the wagon.

(wood whooshing) You can see the toolbox was some spare parts in there and the wrenches so forth.

- [Steve] Spare parts, now, come on.

- [Jack] New carriage bolts and other... - [Steve] So this wrench has a function?

- [Jack] Oh, yes, the wrenches fit all the nuts on the wagon here.

Whatever nuts is on there, there's two or three wrenches in there.

And I made all the wrenches, of course.

- Of course.

- Yeah.

- Wow.

How much trial and error do you go through?

Do you do- - [Jack] You know, it's funny that I could just, (wood clanks) - Not a lot.

- I just do it and it works.

I don't know why.

I've born, I guess, with a knack for doing that.

- So the little knife handle and drilling the tiny little holes and making it flush, pretty well, did it the first time.

- Yeah, it just, yeah.

But it takes some thought.

Definitely, it takes some thought.

It's like each piece of this seat has to be made just right.

But like I said- - [Steve] That's what you do.

- It isn't difficult for me to do.

I actually rode in a wagon when I was a kid.

I had an aunt and uncle that they hauled our potatoes to town with one mule in a wagon.

Yeah, they just had, they had shafts on, if they had one, they just had shafts instead of a tongue.

- Yeah.

- And it is amazing what that little old mule could pull up a hill.

You'd think they couldn't, but it was astonishing what they could pull.

- Through nine decades of life, Jack rarely has encountered a construction task that his analytical mind and skilled hands couldn't handle.

Metal work, he can do it.

Rawhide braiding, that's a specialty.

Woodwork, auto mechanics, bladesmithing, yes and yes.

Blacksmithing, check.

And add gunsmithing to that list as well.

Another celebrated Mease Made creation is this miniature rifle, perfectly crafted and authentic inside and out, right down to the firing mechanism and ammunition.

- Well, it's called a Remington Rolling Block.

Remington designed and manufactured these and 17 foreign countries adapted this for their military firearm.

It's Rolling Block, and bought the rifles from Remington.

But there was a collector from Laramie, quite a few years back, I don't remember just what year it was.

Well, it was '98 I think, asked me if I'd make a miniature.

He collected the Rolling Blocks.

If I'd make a miniature, and I said, "You want us to create more?"

And he said, "Yeah."

Well, I wonder I made, worked on this and I got it done.

I took it over in the case and the whole bit and handed it to him and he looked at it and said, "How much?"

I said, "$3,000."

He handed it back, and I'm glad he did, because I've since turned down 5,000 for it.

- Is that right?

- But it's definitely one of a kind, everything.

This is Long Range Vernier Sight that actually adjust for height, and so forth.

And the wind is out on the front sight, there's a wind adjustment that moves in from side to side.

And the reason it's called a Rolling Block is you pull a hammer back and you roll this block and it rolls, and you load that and then you push your block back forward and it's ready to fire, (rifle clinks) and pull the trigger and it fires.

And then I put it on safe cock.

But everything on it is a replica of the 1874 Remington Creedmoor rifle.

It's just too small to physically shoot but I did make a cartridge for it.

And you can see the primer in there.

See the little... See.

(Steven chuckling) - It's almost microscopic that you take.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Do you work with a glass sometimes to- - No.

- You don't.

- I can't.

- Your eyeball.

- Glasses.

I got three power glasses that I put on to do this kinda work, but I can't work under magnifying glass and do this kinda work.

It's- - But you said it will load and it will eject.

- [Jack] Yes, and there's screw right there that holds that ejector in there.

And this firing pin is spring loaded and the firing pin's not much bigger than a needle.

- Jack, you must be the one of the most patient man alive in this setting.

Do you think of yourself as that way?

Are you a patient man, and when you're not in the shop?

- I can do this work and if I make a mistake, I don't throw a tantrum.

I just put it away and start over.

And I learn, yes, you actually learn more when you make a mistake than you do making something right.

- Sure.

- As you know, it's kinda hard to explain it that way, but it's the fact that you do.

- Later, Jack points out this tiny replica of a steam engine he'd seen in Montana.

After reading up on the mechanics of the invention, he built it to perfect miniaturized specifications using only some Polaroid photographs for guidance.

By the way, it works perfectly.

- My daughter's got the big one in her yard in Montana and it's an old antique and some of the parts is missing off of it.

And I was looking at that one day and I thought, "I wonder if I couldn't duplicate that thing."

So I looked it over and studied it a little bit, and my son-in-law sent me photographs of it and I duplicated using photographs.

I had to buy a book to study how the valves actually functioned.

For some reason, I can sit down and think about that a little bit, and decide how I'm gonna go about it and do it.

But the valves actually gave me trouble and I bought the book and figured out how those were working.

- And you bought the book.

When in doubt, by the book.

- Yep.

But that was not really simple to do that by no means.

(steam engine whooshing) Them have to function perfectly.

You can see the linkages in here how they're (steam engine whooshing) all that's working.

(steam engine whooshing) Steam was not simple.

It was very complicated.

- You work, I know with other people.

You invite them to come in and work with you.

You teach them, you work beside 'em in the shop.

You've done with people of all ages for different reasons.

- The neighbor kids down here, I think one of 'em was eight years old and I was doing a little braiding, and they seen it and then they got, and those enthused about it.

So there was two of their kids that is the ones I really started teaching.

I've had six grants from the arts parks and history to teach braiding.

I've had over 70 people that started braiding, but most of 'em would last two or three weeks or something on that order.

But I've had probably 10 that got fairly good at it.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- George is the last person that I had as a grant.

George Kirst.

- Mm-hmm.

And you told me he's a cancer survivor who's- - Yes.

- Been in here working with you here quietly for years.

- Yes, he had.

He was nip and tuck there for a while, I think with him.

He was at the Salt Lake, the cancer center down there for, but he would come in here and get to braiding and you could hear him humming and whistling occasionally.

And so to me, and I know his wife really appreciated.

She said, "That's the best therapy that he could've possibly had."

I had another guy, a good friend of mine, his wife passed away and he didn't have things to do, and I suggested that he's braiding.

He started and it was a lifesaver for him too.

Helped him get over it.

It's just something that they can do that makes 'em feel good.

And a lot of my students say they get all wrought up and outta sorts and they can go and sit and braid a little while an hour or two, and it just calms 'em right down.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- If you got your hands busy, you're thinking about what you're doing instead of your problems.

- Yeah, that's what it's been for you through the years?

- Well, I don't say I had problems, but I've always been kind of nervous and keep doing something with my fingers and so forth.

So it gives me something to do besides just play with my fingernails.

- Yeah.

Jack Mease, thanks for having us into your shop and into your world a little bit.

I'm just, feel greatly privileged to have seen what you do and heard about it, watched you demonstrate it, think about you in here doing this stuff.

You told me you're 91 years old, and it's a remarkable thing to have done at any age.

I'm really glad you're still doing it.

I hope you keep on doing it for as long as you can, and thanks for being with us on Wyoming Chronicle.

- Well, thank you for doing it and I hope the public appreciates it.

(upbeat music)