Mooney lied about his age to begin working in a steel mill when he was fourteen. To add a little weight to his young body he attached chains to the apron he wore. This also added protection as he slid sheets of steel into the big shear. The picture of the apron also shows the steel shoe caps he made for himself and others at 13 cents a pair. Mooney and his co-workers, including one eating his cheese and rhubarb pie lunch, are present in the working model he built of that steel mill. Working pliers, made of a single piece of wood with "10 perfect cuts", was Mooney's signature. For fun he made them from match sticks and toothpicks. The match stick in the center of the circle contains ten sets of pliers and has kept its head. Making items like this, which served no practical purpose, he called whittling. The "tree" contains 511 pliers made with 31,000 cuts in 64 days. It was something he envisioned spontaneously and he announced those numbers (511, 31,000, and 64) before he started "whittling".

Mooney made quite a few canes and several had free floating objects in them. both of these have free floating things inside free floating things. The one on the left has a ball inside a cage floating inside the bars of another cage. Certainly impressive but there enough space between all the bars to make you feel confidant that it was done with extreme skill and not magic. Looking at the cane on the right shakes that confidence just a bit. One ball is contained in another with triangular openings so small that no one, including Mooney, has ever touched the ball inside.

Of course, he was not about to stop carving so moved from the history of steam itself to historic moments involving steam. Among these are the Driving of the Golden Spike, the Great locomotive Chase, and others. Lincoln's Funeral Train is a highlight. Every one of the models in the museum is absolutely accurate with incredible details. Among those on the Lincoln train are the engineer in his cab and a key for an internal door.

Mooney's wife Freda as an avid button. She arranged them in artistic patterns which are displayed in the small building behind the house. This was the original museum but was quickly outgrown. It's barely big enough for buttons let alone trains.

I sat at the bar chatting with owner Sandra, her husband Pottsy, and a few other folk. I promised them -- and myself -- that I'd be back sooner than eleven years.