What source taught you most about woodworking?
- High school
- Friends and/or family
- Woodworking schools
- TV shows
- Books and magazines
- Internet
- Other
You will not be able to change your vote.
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Replies
Hello,
I voted "other" because On-the-job-training was not an answer choice.
Chad
So did I, Sapling. I chose "other", because "mistakes" wasn't listed. And I've learned more from making mistakes than from anything else.
So did I, so I voted "other" also. But I also learned a lot from the stuff that came out alright.
I chose other, actually the majority of my woodworking learning came from my position as a theater carp while attending undergrad.
Datachanel
Doing things the hard way
Ruth,
I voted other as formal training isn't an option - two steps above 'woodworking school'.
Please don't dumb down the format of FWW - a pleasure to have a higher end magazine and should it become 'run-of-the-mill', I don't know if I'd resubscribe.
Cheers,
eddie
What is formal training, and how is it two steps above woodworking school? The descriptions I've read of the North Bennet Street School make it sound pretty formal to me. The woodworking program at the College of the Redwoods doesn't sound all that informal, either.
Ian and others, I've said it at least once and I'll say it again. The polls we put on this site serve many purposes, most of them minor in the grand scale of things. We use them to gather quick and dirty market research, to add an interactive feature to our site (the polls on Knots usually appear concurrently on the magazine home page), to amuse and stimulate discussion. Because we are limited by the software to yes/no responses and a single-choice answer, and because space constraints limit the number of selections we want to offer, it is impossible to construct a poll that satisfies all users. Especially discerning, analytical users such as yourselves. Insulting anyone's intelligence is the last thing we want to do.
Please just accept these little "exercises" for what they are. If you find them annoying, beneath you, stupid, irrelevant -- just ignore them and go on to a topic that interests you more. Ruth DobsevageTaunton New Media
Would it be appropriate, or even possible, to include this explanation when you first post the poll? It does seem like you're having to post something like it more often recently. I don't remember seeing so many objections when I first started reading the poll threads.
I'd have to post the poll, and then immediately post to the thread. It could be done, I guess, but I'm afraid it would get tiresome, both for me and for people reading it. Ruth DobsevageTaunton New Media
>> ... I'm afraid it would get tiresome ...
Very likely. But the whining gets tiresome, too. :/
I do think a short explanatory message would be a good thing to accompany these polls. And I'll also say that I am a FWW subscriber whose skills fall into the beginner range, though I'm intending to escape. The beginner articles are useful to me, but that's not why I subscribe to FWW. I can find that info elsewhere, in books and other magazines. I want to see more advanced techniques, and discover techniques I would never have thought to look up. So even though many of your subscribers are beginners, we want to keep Fine Woodworking as fine as possible.
Hear, hear
well put
I'm with you. There are plenty of books out there to teach basics of cabinetry and furniture making. Let's leave the monthly periodical to the relevant and timely advancement of craft, design and technique.
ChadWhen you need help, call in the InfantTree.
I checked books and magazines also . I have learned many things from these sources.However after thinking much about it, I apprenticed for 3 years and have been a self employed furniture / cabinet maker for 25 years or so. My apprenticeship opened my eyes and began my professional journey , I learned much. As an analogy : if you read a book on how to play the guitar , when you are done reading you have learned many facts , but will not be able to play the instrument yet. So perhaps the greatest source of learning at least for me , has been from doing the work . Making mistakes as Jon Arno said is one of the best teachers. I tend not to make the same mistakes over and over. A phrase or creed I subscribe to is "how good you are is how good you fix your mistakes". I still try and keep an open mind and learn something everyday , it truly is an ongoing process.
" graduate of the North West school of hard knocks "
dusty
Uncle Dunc,
See response to Mark - I've explained what I said there - the two schools you mentioned are very similar to my training - even more broad in aspects such as furniture design, of which I have limited formal training. I was trained as a maker, not a designer - so it takes me a fair while to get a design to look 'right.'
Cheers,
eddie
Edited 3/9/2004 2:04:45 PM ET by eddie (aust)
I don't mean to start an argument, but I am almost completly self taught, and I, as well as a few others, consider me to be a master craftsman, with skills in many disciplines of woodworking, so I guess I have to ask where you get off putting formal training 2 steps above woodworking school? Of which I graduated from my own. Please explain.
HI Mark,
You're right - it's not worth starting an argument and I didn't/don't get off putting it higher. I'm not looking to say that I'm superior to anyone else - I'm not like that and as a nation, we tend to put those who walk around with their noses in the air firmly in their place.
Time in training is four years on the job training (apprenticeship) that mandates 1000 hours 'woodworking school' (technical training structured and graded to meet outcomes - they fail you if you don't meet them.) I may be wrong, but woodworking school viewed by this poll is something such as Marc Adams' "planing basics" for a couple of weekends to a fortnight residential such as Mike Dunbar's chair workshop. All very valuable training, by the way.
There's nothing wrong with self-taught. Just takes a bit longer.
Just repeating, I don't "get off putting formal training 2 steps above woodworking school." Sorry that it came across that way. I hope that this has now explained the difference that I was referring to above.
Cheers,
eddie
(who's flat out at work and will be a while before he checks again)
Edited 3/9/2004 2:06:38 PM ET by eddie (aust)
Fair enough.
Ruth
how do I respond to a poll like this?
I'd rate my "WW education" as being fairly evenly divided between three of your options at about 35%, 33%, and 32%.
What value do I provide by checking just one box.
So do I answer 100 times? 35 times against Option C, 33 against G, 32 times for E ?
The people who frequent this discussion board, cover the full range of WW, raw beginers through to very highly skilled crafts people (FG, I can even be gender neutral !)
If your intent is to gain an insight into what sort of articles your the people who haunt the board might like to see you would do better to ask some open questions like:
Are you a self taught WWer or have you had some formal training?
Why do you frequent knots?
What sources have influenced your woodworking over the past 3 (say) years?
If you must use check boxes, can you at least allow us to check more than one option and expand on what we mean by "other"
I also suggest that you also collect some statistical info to go with the one dimensional question you ask.
If your aim is to ultimately broaden the appeal of FWW (i.e. to dumb it down) please leave us out of your surveys – you only give us forewarning to cancell our subscriptions.
Ian
yea the survey didnt mention adult ed or jr college classes or w/w shows where i talk and ask questions to the manufacturers or factory reps..
Darkworksite4:
Gancho agarrador izquierdo americano pasado que la bandera antes de usted sale
I clicked before thinking. I clicked Books & mags.
I learned woodworking on the job starting when I was 18. The small shop I worked for for 6 years was very set in there ways. The guy who taught me "Knew it all". I once talked of going to a woodworking school the reaction was an arrogant as if the idea were absurd. This guy was and still is one of the best craftsmen I know. When I moved on I took with me the egotistical Know it all attitude that I had learned.
I'm a book worm though and couldn't help but read About my obsession. And of course working in other shops helped to change my attitude. Through A lot of pain and humiliation My ego was beat down. Been doing this for 16 years now and I know less than I did when I left my place of apprenticeship. I feel lucky that I learned this trade in the place I did. There Were also many good habits, Ideas, and basic philosophies that have benefited me greatly.The bigoted attitude was not one. The large Library I have built over the years is priceless in the knowledge and benefits I've got from it.
It seems to me that schooling and books together with Experience are essential. One without the other would make for less than half the woodworker. They go hand in hand. Today I have a sign above my shop entry door that says. check your ego at the door.
Thanks Dave - Goodwithwood
ps. Oh ya. Best advice I have- keep an open mind and work for and learn from a variety of shops/sources. There really is no right way to do it accept when safety is involved.(even then it's debatable). And most of all If you're not enjoying it you're doing it wrong.(contradictory. I know)
Edited 3/11/2004 8:57 pm ET by Dave
Edited 3/11/2004 9:06 pm ET by Dave
Edited 3/11/2004 9:12 pm ET by Dave
"I clicked before thinking. I clicked Books & mags."
Dave,
I, too, clicked Books & Mags and later realized that wasn't quite true. While it is true that I read a lot of books and magazines while teaching myself woodworking during the last three decades, I was astonished at all of the new and useful information I learned during my first semester of college woodworking.
During that first class, and the ones that I've taken subsequently, I've been glad that I've read so much over the years, but chagrined by some of the rather large holes in my woodworking education - holes that I'm working hard to patch through formal education.
As a result of my new WW education, I am now routinely tackling tasks that would have seemed way too difficult to attempt before my courses in furniture and cabinet technology.
In retrospect, most of the things I've learned through reading seem to have flowed from either native curiosity or short-term needs, as opposed to a course of study based upon achieving long-term goals.
It would have been instructive if Taunton (or the publishers of the many other WW publications I've read over the years) had printed a list of the kinds of knowledge/skills competent graduates of college WW programs are expected to have learned in order to graduate; such a list would have helped point out the gaps in my WW education.
A woodworking education is all good and valid - I just wish I'd learned some of my recent skills decades ago.
-Jazzdogg-
Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right.
I AM 63 Yrs. old. I started ww when I was 9 yrs. old. I am self taught and still a beginner. Beginner in loving ww and hope to stay that way as long as I keep all 10. Gerald.
FROM KNOTS! you may want to find people who care!
If nothing sticks to Teflon,how does Teflon Stick to metal. Huh
I put down High school because of the instructor Mr. Bud Maley, given the fact how he was like a mentor to me. I graduated 26 years ago and still keep in touch with my old H.S. instructor.
I went on to work with Howard Lewin out of high school, then go to Collage and pursue a degree in construction Technology.
I am now a professional Finish carpenter, cabinet / furniture maker and General contractor.
Many Thanks go to Bud Maley, as well as Ken Dutro of the El Camino Collage construction Tech program.
Tony Czuleger
i choose books and mags because there is no one around me to teach me. I work all day and play in the shop at night. Its an excellenf hobby
play at your own pace
chello
I also chose other because I learned and am still learning as I go off the cuff.
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