Friends,
There are things that I have learned about woodworking that I wish I would have known back when I started in 1968. It is not that these things are “closely guarded secrets”. They were just things that I was quite surprised to learn, because I expected the opposite. It is possible that these things tell you more about me than about woodworking BUT, my guess is that you have experienced this too. Please tell me, what are some of the “truths” about woodworking that you learned after experience, but didn’t expect when first thought about them. Here are a few of mine.
– “Woodwork need not be expensive”.
You an make wonderful furniture with a bench/table out of scrap 2x4s and scrap plywood, a plywood “fence, a circular saw, a jig saw, a router, a drill, screwdriver, hammer and sandpaper. Even if you go the handtool route, the Greatest furniture ever made, for example, by the Goddards and Townsends, was made using wooden planes, and tools that can be bought quite inexpensively. OF COURSE, THEY WERE QUITE SKILLED IN THE USE OF THOSE TOOLS.
– “Hand cut joinery is much easier and faster to make than machine-cut joinery if you are only making a single chest”. It is amazing how fast you can make a dovetailed drawer by hand than it is to get the old jig out and tweak it up for the wood you are using. Mortises and tenons are not brain surgery.
– “Attaining skills takes a lot of practice”. One can learn what the steps in cutting dovetails are in an hour. Getting so you can do them nicely time after time takes A LOT OF PRACTICE.
– “Focussing on trying to “buy the Best” tools is a fools errand.” There is no tool which is best for everyone, and if there was, Festool would improve it next month, and your tools would be out of date. It is best to take a lesson from Philip Marcou, whose shop consists of tools that he found well-used and that he refurbished. One can make masterpieces with such tools.
– “Never use a dull tool”.
A newbie doesn’t know what dull and sharp mean. He learns what they mean, and what they can mean by using tools which are in varying degrees of sharp. One cannot know what sharp is until one has used dull tools. I like to give students dull planes and ask them to use them, and then give them a well fettled plane and watch their eyes light up.
– “Sharpening by hand is far simpler, far easier, far more flexible, far less dangerous, and far less likely to do damage, than sharpening by machine.”
I have seen a lot of Tormeks just sitting and gathering dust. Folks didn’t realize that one needs skills to use the machine. They thought that it would replace the need for skill. It doesn’t. If you think a Worksharp will solve your problems, watch a newbie try to flatten the back of a chisel on the top of a Worksharp. It is painful to observe.
One doesn’t “sharpen” often. One “hones” often, and it usually takes less than a minute.
Anyone can learn to sharpen by hand in just a few sessions, and can gain excellent skills in the next few months.
Some people try to make sharpening sound difficult by giving you 15 different steps for each tool you can thing of. Once you understand what sharpening is all about, you can figure out the fifteen steps by yourself.
– “Anyone can learn how to “design” nice furniture.”
For a long time, I just copied stuff in the Thomasville catalog and elsewhere, figuring that I could never learn how to design my own. But those were just my ‘fear of failure’ taking over. The way to learn to make your own designs is the same as the way to learn to make dovetails by hand or to sharpen, — practice, practice, practice. Also, study the designs of others, not to copy them but to see how they worked things out. Read about Sam Maloof.
– “Almost everybody is “Sponsored”, making it nearly impossible to get valid information about woodworking issues on the web or on TV.”
I remember wondering how Norm selected his tools. Then I realized that his sponsor gave them to him. Then I found all sorts of great websites on woodworking that weren’t by manufacturers. BUT THEN I found that most of these sites are “sponsored”.
I have stopped asking for help or looking for solutions to issues on the web. I have developed a circle of people that I know and trust, and I send private emails to them when I am looking for good advice from knowledgeable people who are not receiving anything from tool makers.
Looking for valid information on “tool evaluation” on the web is like trying to figure out the rules of baseball by listening to the roar of the crowd at Yankee Stadium.
– “There is no one-best-way of doing anything in woodworking”.
Find something that works for you. If someone else can do it but you cant, that doesn’t mean it is a lousy technique or tool, it merely means that that person has more skill than you do.
I’ll stop here. Sure would like to find out some of the things that you learned by experience in woodworking that wasn’t what you expected.
Have fun.
Mel
Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Replies
Mel,
I swear. You have way too much time on your hands..
Zolton
If you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon
Z,
"Mel, I swear. You have way too much time on your hands.".
Too much time on his hands, too much solipsism, too little understanding of opinions other than his own, too much paranoia about imaginary selling conspiracies; too much high-handed lecturing of what he deems to be the ignorant Pavlovian masses; too much ..... well, too much Mel! He belongs to another age (the 1950s, when paranoia and conformity were Very Good Attitudes held by all Right-Thinking fellows, who also had the same bad haircut).
As ever, I recommend to all that they use the magic button, which might be compared to a fly-swat (stops the annoying buzzing and pollution of one's pieces of knowledge-cake with mucky fly-blow).
Lataxe, weary of droning bugs.
Lataxe,Your alive and back in form!
"solipsism"...now there's a word I haven't seen since matriculation.Thought you had abandoned us for a long cycle ride around your Kingdom.So what is the next garden bench?Boiler
BB,
I have been sporting in the surf with grandchildren, riding madly on a bicycle around the hills and dales, attending courses on Latin, classical rhetoric and the philosophy of history at my Alma Mater, just over the road........
And there has been some serious classical guitar lessons, only 50 years late....
And the archery classes start on 26th August so I have been trying to teach myself to control high emotional impulses, as otherwise it will be a fateful thing to allow me access to weapons.......
And that ex Royal Marine has been making a plaything of my person (he has a theory that the "220 minus your age" formula for maximum heartbeat is nonsense; maximum is 1 beat less than that at which you make a hollow croak and fall off the hill-climbing machine as the pulse monitor plummets to zero).
But I been doing no woodwork.
However, autumn is in the air (summer seems to have not bothered to come this year) and my mind has turned to the possibility of a carving class for the ladywife and moi with the wondrous Chris Pye. If anyone can fix my carving cack-handedness shurely it is he? He returns from his mission to your Beknighted States in late September I believe. I have a walnut table to make, with turned legs, scratch-beaded edges and acanthus carvings upon it.
Lataxe, name-dropping in an attempt to out-Mel Mel (no chance really, he collects WW hero-figures, or "tool-pushers" as he deems them until he has "collected" them).
Lataxe old bean,
But, if you followed thine own advice, you wouldn't see the posting of droning-bug-mel, and be able to follow it with a predictable buzz of your own would you?
A solipse is better than a fallacy...
Ray, still a-shiver from nearly being eaten by a hickory-horned devil right outside the shop door (staying on-topic bug-wise) My LORD!! those things are huge, and ugly.
PS whatever have you been up to, y'ole hermit?
Ray, ole logic-chopper,
Now, all you have heard is the swish of my fly-swat, which I find I flap about wildly (and with no effect) when the pesky things buzz too close to my Victoria plums with ice cream. (This is how I think of knots, - a bowl of tasty stuff that may be enjoyed and makes one fat with knowledge, so flies dropping into it with their muck are not welcome). Yes, I know it is predictable and ineffective, to lash wildly at the flies; but I never pretended to be in control of meself!
One day I expect to find a Mel-missive requiring that we all burn our woodworking books because they contain Wrong Things which are also nothing but tool-adverts in disguise. As Donald mentions, one wonders why the kreature lurks here on a knowledge-sharing website at all, since he seems to think that it is full of wrongness and nothing more than a scam to make us buy tools.
I invite him to go hence to a nunnery.
Lataxe, quite anxious to avoid woodworking becoming a Mel cult, as I have no need to go off with aliens to the planet Zog or to suffer a rapture concerning cheap hand tools and oilstones.
Lataxe y'ole fly nemesis,
You must consult wi' our Prez, to get a handle on proper fly annihilation. I bet there's a you-tube flick showing his prowess.
And, you must know that our mutual friend Mel would never speak against buying any book--so long as it keeps its resale value.
A bit of solipsism is a good thing, it balances wholesale acceptance of " common knowledge". Book learning goes only so far as the writers persoanl knowledge of the subject. Many a writer has unwittingly passed on erroneoud material that has been in its turn accepted and passed on itself. Momma used to say, "That paper will lay there and let you put anything on it you want to write." It's those single minded solipsists who go on to do the things that more knowledgeable folks say cannot be done. (Those who don't end up in blind alleys, that is.)
Ray, with no plum-tree, but up to his ears in zucchini, sweet corn, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, beets, potatoes, and... zucchini.
Worth noting about "book-learning". The general who led the most famous "charge" at Gettysburg , was one who was so bad at book-learning he finished dead last at West Point! Of course, he also lost a battle the next year because he was at a "Shad Bake" miles from the battle. I think there is even a fence named for this "scholar". Think Pickett Fence! Mr. Geo. Pickett, of Virginia.
Edited 8/17/2009 1:12 pm ET by whitedogstr8leg
Ray,
We cannot have you using z-heavy words for nice veggies; it is a corgette, as any proper Ypean will tellee. (Shurely a zucchini is a type of Viennese instrument, like a zither only with more bass). I like the yeller ones that the ladywife is currently making me eat by the hundredweight. Them yeller tomatoes are good too. In fact, yeller is the in-thing here, as I am also eating nasturtian flowers.
Now, you evince the individualist-hero thang about Speshul Folk who buck the trend. No doubt trend-bucking might manifest in a single lad or lass but what engendered the new thinking, eh, eh? Not a purely Cartesian ponder in the depths of their wetware but rather a whole evolutionary path of ideas arrowing through time and a thousand other human brains....?
Or is all that language, science, art, poetry and so forth just a tedious distraction to the Pure Thoughts of them Brave New men and Ladees, as they "have a dream"?
Lataxe, probably just a cog in a great big social Difference Engine.
Lataxe, dear chap,
I thought a corgette was a small French version of her Majesty's canine companion?
As to the squash, our zucc's are green, and if left unattended for a day, will grow to the size of a bicyclist's thigh. Our yellow variety has a slender, crooked neck, and yes we have a surfeit of them too. I prefer the tart red 'maters to the sweet yellow ones, but that's just me. I eat them this time of year til my mouth breaks out in sores.
If you have winnowed out from whence come the innovative ideas, perhaps you'll share an inoculation of that meme with your 'Muricun friend???
Ray, still wading thru that book on irrationality
Ray,
"From whence comes innovation?", you ask, all agog.
Ah ha! We must allow that out of the permutations and combinations of idea-stuff, in the fine ecology of our culture and its nodes within our little grey cells, complexity may emerge from simple constituents. Think of it as turning a heap of common-or-garden veggies into an astounding ragout, the taste and pleasures of which are not available merely via raw veggie-munching, in a linear fashion.
Perhaps you merely wish to award the idea-gong to the lucky node from which the exciting permutation happened to engender and emerge? Well, this is the tradition and we ignore all the other nodes who made a contribution to the perming; and also those who were perming in parallel but who weren't first to the market, patent office, Nobel committee or whatever other cultural gate we have inherited.
Yes, it's that evolutionary thang! I recommend to you another Daniel Dennett tome - "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" - which contains a very clear (albeit detailed and long) explanation of how very simple things may, in an environment begining with only undifferentiated plasma and some mysterious laws of physics, combine and recombine to construct stuff that looks oh-so designed. But guess what? No designer needed!
If there was a designer one must ask - what designed the designer (if the design has to exist before the apparently designed things)? And what designed the designer of the designer? Ad infinitum.
Lataxe, practising Sophism (perfectly acceptable in ancient Greece so shurely a Good Thang in your book as you are a Classicist, are ye no)?
Lataxe,
Don't try your Jedi mind-tricks on me!
Have slogged my way thru your Mr (or is it Dr) Dennett's little book, and I confess that while I read the whole thing, I didn't comprehend more than one quarter of it. I'm letting the synapses cool off, and will feed it thru again. Maybe after 2 or 3 more chewings, I will be able to digest its contents ensuite. Afterwards, I'll take on the man's resolution of the contrary concepts of evolution and entropy.
But, if I read your little treatise here correctly, you are positing that we all stand on the shoulders of those who came before? And that those "Eureka!" moments are the result of nothing more than random electrical impulses just happening to occur in an order that lights up the light bulb in the balloon over the thinker's head?
Sounds a bit like the room full of chimps, wherein one of 'em starts writing the complete works of Shakespeare.
I'm more in line with the sentiment expressed by the fellow who said, "Fate favors a prepared mind," or words to that effect. Thought you were hinting that you were in possession of the match that would, at will, spark that prepared tinder. Oh, drat.
Ray, daily filling the larder with ragout components-- literally, and literarily
Ray,
You query, "But, if I read your little treatise here correctly, you are positing that we all stand on the shoulders of those who came before"?
Well now, your question includes suspect forms such as "those who came before" when in fact the idea-stuff has a life of it's own, which only happens to require big human brains as a substrate. The essential stuff that "came before" are the memes (concepts, ideas, copyable behaviours and other information-constructs).
Until recently these memes have been intimately associated only with human brains, where memes first arose and began to evolve. However, they are trying to escape this limitation ("trying" only in that unintentional evolutionary sense of recombine -mutate - adapt, not as part of some cunning and conscious plan about the future).
Already the memes are causing other substrates besides out wewetware to arise - books, films, data files, computer programs et al. Soon the simple computer-chimps will evolve further, as the memes evolve and build ever-more complex and capable substrates in which to live. Perhaps the human brains will become inefficient and redundant, as meme-homes? Keep an eye out for Terminators!
Anyroadup, we are (I feel) kidding ourselves that there is an integrated "I" which consists of some sort of ghost in the machine that governs our thoughts and doings. The "I" certainly exists but is probably just a feed-back mechanism within the biological-meme machine that rationalises person-related historical events into some form of apparent intention commissioned by a clever internal ghost. In reality, we are somewhat irrational and driven by gene-meme combinations of which we are hardly aware. Ask any trick-cyclist.
So, if clever lads and lasses emit their clever stuff via "a prepared mind" one must ask, what did the preparing (as well as, what is a mind)? You may favour that ghost but "I" think it's the memeplexes that swim in the cultural sea and drive us about here and there through the metaphysic, taking advantage of our genetic nature.
****
Still, I suppose that it's nice to have a hero to look up to (until one notices the feet of clay, leading up to the rest of the mud and murk).
Lataxe, integrated biologically but somewhat scatter-minded.
Isn't that all part of String Theory? (ala the meme-brain folks) ;-)
Mr Memeplex,
It seems to this set of memes (the ones that are directing ((however irrationally)) the fingers that are typing this message) that you are simply substituting one set of names (meme, idea-stuff) for another ( I, ego, culture, norms, consciousness). If that satisifies some internal set of preconditions that your thoroughly modern memes have imposed upon your you-ness, far be it from me (meme?) to mess with them. If a "new idea" (inspiration) becomes a "mutation", and "progress" becomes "evolution" in your lingo, all well and good, and I'll try anbd accomodate you. As if common English wasn't enough to separate us, er.. our memes, in understanding!
Unless of course, it's that rascal/hero Mel, who is asleep and dreaming this whole conversation, forum, us, memes and all!
Cheers,
Ray, or ought I to say, ego cogito, ergo sum Ray)
Ray,
Shurely shome mishtake, as it is I who am dreaming you lot! In all events, I cannae believe that any of this is real.
Lataxe, a mess o' meme, many of which are merely re-labelling the others then shuffling them up in my synaptic ecology.
PS You have missed the unspoken conclusion - "I" am an illusion so I can't be responsible for anything. The meme-demons made me do it!
Lataxe,
I don't know how you missed the point of my little joke about Mel's dream. Of course, I am the dreamer, that's why you are always so pliant and agreeable- you are simply following my dream-directions. You do see how it works now, don't you? I hope I don't have to keep rememe-ing you, as it becomes rather tedious. Feels like I am writing the dialog to a Quentin Tarantino movie--omigod- we're in a Tarantino dream!
Ray
You know... I just read this entire thread. I'm not quite sure why though it may have to do with I'm letting my over-head air cleaner in my shop sweep the dust from last evening and nothing else to do. I don't think I found any best kept secrets until I read your post....
"Our yellow variety has a slender, crooked neck"... in reference to yellow squash which is not really WW'ing but.. I was desperate to learn a secret at that point of the thread. Anyhoo... it aroused my suspicion of "why" we call yellow squash in my region.. "crooked neck squash"! I may be onto something here from your statement as I have always just called them crooked neck squash because I was told early in life that's what they were.
So... with a cup of coffee in hand I can now head to the mostly dust-free shop at this point to create some more dust. Hopefully I will discover a wood-working secret which I desperately seek that I can reveal in this thread so I can gain the respect of my fellow wood-workers as so many have already done.
BTW.. the lovely allowed me my quarterly steak last night. She included sliced crooked neck squash and zuc cooked in an aluminum tin on top of the grill in "real" butter. One of your sliced red tomatoes from the plastic pots filled with soil on our rear deck 15" up was also included on a crispy bed-o-lettuce with mayonnaise on the side.
Have a good day Ray... and tend to those crooked necks or they will most definitely get out of hand reproducing themselves from one vine alone. Wait too long to harvest and you need a front end loader. ha.. ha...
Sarge..
Woodworkers' Guild of Georgia
Edited 8/19/2009 8:55 am ET by SARGEgrinder47
Sarge,
!Quarterly steak"!? That is a pernicious regime and must be either the savage play of a sadistic wifey or a medical directive.
Now, if it is the latter, I invite you to come over here and share my ex-Royal Marine trainer fellow, who will impose processes upon your biologicals with which you may have been familiar in your yoof. They will not only bring back the happy memories of your induction into that hArmy you were in but also improve the steak-digesting fluids, so that you may have a-one every day without brain-blot or chest-grasping manifesting.
Of course, there is the risk that The Marine will "kill you with kindness", as he explores your current cardiac and tendon capabilities then seeks to make rapid improvements to them. (He seems an impatient fellow and not inclined to notice excuses, such as groans, gasps or a bit of technicolour-yawn down the vest).
Still - steak every day - just think!
Lataxe, who is cannily handing over the ladywife to The Marine, so he will forget about me as he improves the tautness of her regions not to mention her stamina. (Don't worry, I have shown him my gelding iron).
PS I have any number of woodworking secrets but, as you will realise, if I told you them they might be disputed or even ridiculed by skeptics! Best that I practice them furtively in the shed, with the curtains drawn.
Medical directive I took as a suggestion and unfortunately agreed it would be best. I am about 80% veggie now but... fortunately love red beans and rice with a dash of worstershire and extra virgin (love that extra stuff) olive oil and of course saturated with Tabasco sauce. :<)
I'll pass on the ex Royal Marine as I am quite busy trying to un-lock the secrets of drawing dove-tails on a drawer for a fish tank table with a crayon. The bad news is I can't draw... the good news is I got plenty of crayons on sale at the Dollar Store.
East has got to meet West somewhere and I'm going to find where X marks the spot... ha.. ha... ha..ha..ha..
Now where did I lay that crayon..... ?Sarge..
Woodworkers' Guild of Georgia
I confirm the correct word is CORGETTE. Nice snack to have in Greece, where they they also prepare the leaves and flower.
But beware of any lady wearing a lapel badge such as the one pictured- these are zucchini eaters and dangerous from a distance.Philip Marcou
Philip,
Aieeee! Shurely the green or yellow would put a ladee orf the rampant vegetable!? One hopes that there are no keen allotment wimmin even now busying at unholy breeding programmes in an attempt to induce the corgette to take on a more realistic aspect or three, such as "pink", [that's enough attributes - The Taunton anti rude-veg squad].
Talking of stuffing, the ladywife does have a fine recipe for stuffed corgette flowers, which produces a delicious repast despite the fact that they do look like something an alien might eat. Speaking of aliens.....
I liked WillG's precis of the "WW secrets from planet Zog", especially his succinct refutations. However, I must point out that allowing these peculiar prejudices to even be considered as premises in some kind of argument is a trap via which totalitarian woodworking memes will gain a grip on our psyches.
Before long you would be receiving a vist from Mel's Mauraders, dressed in sombre black uniforms, who would melt down all your brass and steel items using a pyre of your exotic-wood totes & knobs, which metal-amalgam they would send to a sweat shop in Burma for use in producing brass-bladed chisels and banana planes that take 100 hours to flatten (and still don't work).
You yourself would be taken to be re-educated, via having to live with a Mel-clone droning WW dogma at you 24 hours a day until you capitulated and recanted at a show trial, presided over by Charles......
Lataxe, skipping away lightly from the mind-chains.
Oh how I wish I could do cartoon drawings.....By the way, did you see Will's Shaun the Sheep and related videos?
Edited 8/18/2009 6:26 am by philip
Ha ha, that solipsism is a fine word -which I looked up and saw that "this article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. Now who would you nominate for the post?
Philip Marcou
Not averse to fly swatting, but solipsism and Pavlovian are unlikely bedfellows. Having once worked in an English dept. I'm all too familiar with solipsism. Most mind-numbing literary theory, including Freudian and Lacanian, depends on the premise that the world doesn't exist outside the "thinker's" mind. Proof is irrelevant. Pavlov and other behaviourists belong to one of the few corners of psychology where scientific proof and scientific methods are required. Could be why they're unfashionable.
Jim
Jim,
Ah ha! Them behaviourists are rightly out of fashion as they have been kidding themselves and us concerning the empirical "evidence" for salivating at the bell and so forth. Hungry dawgs are one thing but meme-stuffed humans are quite another and most difficult to analyse in terms of their doings unless one understands what memeplexes are infecting them. However, it takes another load of memeplex to understand extant memeplex. Cuh!
Memeplex is tirrible complicated stuff and who knows all of their influences and internal connections as they sport and frolic in our bonce? Certainly not the behaviourists, who (like the pschoanalysts and everyone else) posit mad theories and then find "evidence" to support them. Poor buggers - they too are full of memes already, which tend to determine their selection of the "facts" that support their theories; indeed them memes often actually construct the "facts" in true solipsist fashion.
Rationalism - another virulent memeplex infecting behaviourists as much as the rest of us in this post-modern world. Let's make up a New Theory! It's just as good as anyone else's!! Now, my preference is evolutionary psychology - a fine universal acid for all previous sociology, expecially behaviourism.
Still, solipsism is the purfek attitude for we products of The Century of The Self. Even the vast swathe of social and cultural influences that make us what we are can be regarded as stuff we somehow generated in our own remarkable head. It only seems to come from all them other minds out there, which we are just imagining of course. "Life is a film in my head and I can write any script I like".
Then the Reality Producer imposes an alternative plot and we must quickly fall in line whilst pretending that we dreamt up The Producer as well.
Lataxe, who can be made to salivate quite easily (show me an expensive tool catalogue).
Hey, dogs are meme-stuffed too -- mine was, anyway. And congratulations: you've just been awarded an honorary doctorate in literary theory by the online School of Dead Ends and Lost Causes. As fine a dissertation as I've ever cried over.
Jim
If I told you it wouldn't be a secret.
Mike
I used to know a lot of woodworking secrets, but I've forgotten most of them. Besides, we didn't have "yellow stickies" to remind us back then. ;-)
"Woodwork need not be expensive"
Hello Mel:
Of all the past times known to man, woodworking is one of the few that can be absolutely free.
For example, if you build a kitchen, then it will most probably pay for the tools purchased in terms of increased value. Build a kitchen for a neighbor or friend and you can recoup your cash investment. Do a few projects of this sort and your own woodwork is scott free.
Apropos your other piece: It is usually said that the most bitter religious feuds are among different sects of the same religion; and so it is with woodworking. The most subtle and arcane matters can provoke a semi-religious war - think round versus square dog holes!
Hastings
As I always say, "It's cheaper than golf.">"Woodwork need not be expensive"Hello Mel:Of all the past times known to man, woodworking is one of the few that can be absolutely free.
Boy, Mel, you've disappointed us again with the disconnect between your high-blown title--Best Kept Secrets--and the content of you post. You list a set of thoroughly pedestrian observations and grudge-settling.
As my grandchildren would probably say, "Well, duh." Do you really think that many members of this forum will be surprised to learn that attaining skills takes practice or that sharp tools work better than dull ones?
Your discovery this late in your life that woodworking programs on TV are sponsored seems to have shocked you into drawing an unsupportable conclusion: that it is "nearly impossible to get valid information about woodworking issues on the web or on TV." Do you really believe that Norm's approach to furniture construction, choice of techniques, and methods of work are invalidated by his use of tools supplied by a sponsor? Or that a reviewer's description of a tool and its features are incorrect because the tool manufacturer gave it to him? Why do you keep reading this forum or any other web source if you "know" that the information is not valid?
I urge you to consider that some of us are not as fascinated as you with the inner workings of The Mind of Mel. Please consider that not every last one of your musings will improve our lives.
Don
Mel,
Don't stop - keep going. You are writing my book for me!
and www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris,
I urge you to consider who might read the book, let alone buy it.(;)
Philip Marcou
Philip,Thanks for the concern, but I'm not writing this book to make a dime. I find that I learn an awful lot from my writing. I clarify my views on various topics and am forced to research other things I am less familiar with. Perhaps it's my way of getting ahead. I have a chronic habit of overthinking things, and this is a way for me to control it and stay sane - something to keep the mind occupied.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodworks.com and http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I guess I was missing just how terrible Mel is. I just had no idea. Mel; you are just rotten clear through boy. Bet you didn't know that. I sure didn't realize just how awful you are.
Bad, nasty, oooohhhh ug
But that is not what I came here to say.
What I came here to say is:
Sure would like to find out some of the things that you learned by experience in woodworking that wasn't what you expected . . . .
You have heard mine too often : Wet end grain to plane it. Well that was not really from experience come to think of it I read that. PS: I suppose what I learned there from experience was that low angle/miter plane is not magically better for end grain.
OK here is another one : just how delicate a sharp edge is while being sharpened . . . breaking off the wire edge is a bad idea . . . un flat stones sometimes cause one not to be able to get down to the last bit of the edge if one goes to a flatter stone on the next grit.
So at the risk of being bad. I Mean really bad. Practically evil . . .
AND GET OFF THIS HATE MEL MERRIGOROUND
Sure would like to here some of the things that you learned by experience in woodworking that wasn't what you expected . . . .
roc
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 8/16/2009 3:51 pm by roc
Edited 8/16/2009 3:56 pm by roc
Roc,Non illigitimi carborundum. I don't. :-)
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
Carborundum is sooo passe`. All the hip illigitimi are into waterstones nowadays.
Ray
Edit to answer the original post.
I remember well the first time I saw a simple card scraper in use. Up til that time "scraper" was a Red Devil product, two 1 1/2" blades back to back on a handle, sharpened with a file, used to rake gluelines. The first shop I worked in, the new guy's first project was to make his own handle.
When I moved on to another shop, seeing the shavings that a simple flat piece of steel could pull was a revelation, I tell you.
Edited 8/16/2009 5:53 pm ET by joinerswork
Carborundum is sooo passe`. All the illigitimi are into waterstones nowadays.
Cheap ba$tard$
Ray,
I still have one of those Red Devil double bladed scrapers. I still use it to scrape off glue sometimes. But I like the new fangled scrapers better.By the way, I saw Jeff Headley last month. He came to our monthly guild meeting and showed what could be made at his upcoming week-long classes. I gotta tell you - very impressive. Someone asked about the degree of skill and the type of skills needed for the courses. The answer was not to worry about that -- things would work out. I talked to one guy who took one of his courses and asked about that. He said that there was a wide range of skills in the five students in the class he took. One particular person had not much experience at all, but her desk turned out to be one of the best produced at that class. I asked my friend how that happened. He answered "Very smoothly". Heck, it sounds like those courses are designed for someone like me. You might want to get into the training business and out of the woodworking business. David Savage takes on a number of students each year and the cost is not cheap. Think about taking on six students for a two year course, and charging each only $40,000 a year. That would be more than David charges, but you would also teach carving. While working with those six students, you would, of course, have some free time on your hands, in which you could rewrite Tage Frid's book and make it into a set of DVDs. The steady stream of income from those would allow you to retire while still in your 40s. Whaddya think? :-)
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
You have all these great ideas. Where were you when I was in my 40's???
Sad commentary on our times when our best craftsmen can do better financially as teachers, than when practicing their craft.
Ray
I was in my mid 30's several decades ago when we needed another bedroom for our then expected 4th child. My neighbor and I checked out a time life book from the library and cut the roof off our home and threw it in the back yard. That sort of commits you to finishing the job. Neither of us had any experience, we just did it. I way more that paid for the long departed Sears Radial Arm Saw we bought for that project.Every tool I have bought since then has paid for itself in either the first job or in a few jobs. And I am a toolaholic. I am on my fifth table saw and band saw. It would be nice if there is a woodworkers guild in your city, if not maybe a neighbor or friend who can get you started. If none of those are available, head to the local library and check out as many books on woodworking and get started. Jump in the water is fine.Domer
He11 Domer,
I jumped in the water almost 40 yrs ago. My problem is keeping my head above the stuff.
Ray
"Sad commentary on our times when our best craftsmen can do better financially as teachers, than when practicing their craft."Why is that sad? I find that teaching is at least as rewarding as building furniture. Passing on knowledge is just as important as being able to use it.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodworks.com and http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris,
It's sad when what you want to do is use your skills to be creative with wood, not to be a teacher, and financial pressure is pushing many skilled craftsmen in that direction.
Not a knock on folks who want to be teachers, or teaching-- like Mark Twain said about quitting smoking, I've done it myself, dozens of times. There are rewards beyond monetary ones in teaching, for sure; but the portion of the psyche that is stroked by the act of creation is in a different spot. At least for me. YMMV :-)
Ray
Gotcha.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodworks.com and http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I'm with you, Chris.Teaching should be a high paying career.The only sad part is that some professional teachers, the Keepers Of The Knowledge, the instructors for the generation that will figure out how to put a man on Mars, are eligible for foodstamps, while a cretin who fights dogs had a six million dollar contract.
Mel,I also still use the red devil as the first go to to get off the big junk. Sometimes followed by my evergouge -- a tri tipped Sanvik with handle.
Those good scrapers are saved for what I spent time honing em fur. Wood shaving, not glue shaving. I also hone that red devil double blade. Might need to camber it soon....I wonder, would there be an advantage to having a York pitch on that puppy? Ya know, for those real hard glues. :)Boiler
My friends and I have been following this thread with much anticipation today. I checked in with some of the cats and we have come to a consensus :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfAHlHzd7DM&feature=relatedrocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Roc,
COOL CATS, man. I mean, totally laid back, dude. You must have missed the excitement of the discussion about Red Devil scrapers, you know, the old doubled bladed one. That kinda got outta hand as folks pushed to make their views known about this mainline tool. I hear that both Lee Valley and Lie Nielsen are going to come out with improved versions of the old standby, but with some real differences. Rob Lee is aiming at a bevel down version made out of the same moisture resistant metal that he made the latest block plane out of. You know, the one that Charles said is shaped like a suppository. Tom Lie Nielsen, as you would expect is going to stick with the more traditional design but will offer three models. He is adding models with York and Middle pitch. Rob is going to sell the three, in a suitable leather pouch for $750. The Rob Lee is using a sealskin pouch, which together with the waterproof BU Scraper will come in at only $400. I understand the Chinese have a model of the scraper that will sell for 86 cents, but if you want the muslin pouch, it will be $1.49. I can't believe the Chinese can match the quality of LV or LN at that price. It is possible that Woodcraft can talk Wood River and Stanley into joining in on this new resurgence of the old Red Devil scraper.Given these exciting developments, I can't see how you cool cats are remaining so relaxed. MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
And read this.. I live in Illinois and a true abuse of power...
http://news.uk.msn.com/odd-news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=149101922&ocid=today
And even if he did it on purpose.. Is that not only a mild form of freedom of speech?
Edited 8/17/2009 5:37 pm by WillGeorge
WillG,
I understand that in The Beknighted States (well, some of them) the jailing of folk for anything and nothing is a hot industry, as the various "law" enforcement agencies are in fact a business seeking (in the fine capitalist tradition) to reduce costs - the cost of labour in this instance.
Them "crims" can be made to produce all sorts of saleable goods and services for a mere 0 - 50 cents a day! Better than a Burma sweatshop!!
So, slavery is alive and well, although it is called "punishing crmnls for gittin uppidy with the enslavers, I mean officers of the law". And you have just about the highest prison population pro rata of any "civilised" nation in the world.
Still, we must allow the entrepreneurs their freedoms, even if this means none for the hoi polloi.
Lataxe, probably a rabid proto-crmnl.
BB,
Those old Red Devils will soon be the most popular woodworking tool in the world, even more popular than the Festool Domino!
Have fun.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Rocky,
What is this about wire edges, now? You don't like to tear them off, hey?
Have you noticed that the three main steels commonly used and much talked about in woodworking circles produce markedly differing wires??
Helluvva thing , that, but it means that one can identify which steel is which when sharpening and honing.Philip Marcou
Phillip..
Here in the USA you can send almost anything to a local or not so local collage for their thoughts on a subject. Maybe because the professors get tired of things to do for class experiments?
Not sure the professor sends with a grade on who did the tests! ;>)
OK.. So not everything is allowed..
Edited 8/17/2009 5:46 pm by WillGeorge
LOL LOL Mortises and tenons are not brain surgery.
Unless you have to think to make one!
"Woodwork need not be expensive". Not true....
"Hand cut joinery is much easier and faster to make than machine-cut joinery if you are only making a single chest". Not true..
"Attaining skills takes a lot of practice". TRUE!
"Focussing on trying to "buy the Best" tools is a fools errand." TRUE!
"Never use a dull tool". Not True if in a hurry!
"Sharpening by hand is far simpler, far easier, far more flexible, far less dangerous, and far less likely to do damage, than sharpening by machine."
And if you have a helper have him/her do it?
"Anyone can learn how to "design" nice furniture."
Bull ####!
"Almost everybody is "Sponsored",
Not me.. I tried for Jack Daniels and fell asleep on the set...
"There is no one-best-way of doing anything in woodworking".
I agree but...
I don't know any woodworking "truths" other that there are probably very few of them, and only relating to obvious points of physics (and sometimes even the constraints of physics can be oversome by craftsmen who don't know any better - like the bumblebee's flight).
I can tell you some things that I recall being sort of revelations to me, however:
- I think as a beginner I "knew" that different woods would have different properties, but I don't think I really appreciated how different and unique each piece of wood (even those of the same species or from the same tree) really is
- As a beginner, I was an unsure and therefore incompetent sharpener; it's funny how now that it seems second nature, I can't remember what seemed so daunting about it
- At the beginning, the building skills seemed especially daunting; but once those are mastered to a level of even meager competence, you realize how much more daunting and difficult is good, original design
- To me dogmatic lines regarding appropriate tools are rather arbitrary and unhelpful as the point is the result and not the means. That said, the means sometimes dictates the result. Even pace alone can dictate results (i.e., being forced to go slightly slower by the hand powered version of a tool also available with a cord, can lead me to a different result or allow time for course changes).
- basic blades are awesome - chisels, drawknives, spoveshaves, gouges, planes - their itterative removal (as opposed to machines that remove wood to a line all at once) function is their power - allowing fits and forms directly that machines would struggle to duplicate and then only with hassle and jig.
I'll stop there for now. This thread doesn't seem to have much to do we these sorts of things anyway.
Samson,
I was quite surprised by the responses to my post. I was expecting things like you came up with --woodworking things that seem different now than you originally expected. Every item on your list is true for me as well. Chris is writing a book about the mind of the woodworker. I asked the question after conversing with him last week. I believe the few answers we received will be useful to him. Thank you.
Hope your hard work is paying off and you are having some more time for actual woodworking. When David Savage came to my house and visited my shop, he said nice things but he said in a stern voice, "You need a proper workbench!" I had been thinking about it for a while but that put me over the top. I just assembled by new Sjobergs 2000 Elite workbench and it is quite nice. Now I am making a storage case for drawers to fit into its base.
Have fun.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
I thought of you the other day, Mel. I'm getting up the momentum to try a welsh stick chair (a la John Brown - may he rest in peace), so in my meager bits of shop time though this busy summer I have been messing with the chairmaking tools I've gathered. Most recently I was testing the sharpness/experimenting with my Iles scorp in a piece of scrap cherry and it turned into a small shallow bowl! I think I'll be making some more excavated (as opposed to turned) bowls and platters as you have done. It's good fun.
Sean,
The chairs should be fun. If you ever have the time, I'd be happy to bring up my bowl excavating tools up and have you try them out. I don't need much notice.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Sean,I gleaned some juicy tidbits from your post for my book. Thanks.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodworks.com and http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Hey, Chris, thanks. Glad to not just be talking to myself!
Sean,
You forgot to attach the copyright notice to your ponderings and now Chris will annex them thoughts you had as his own via the copyright in hiis fine book, which I have already pre-ordered from Amazon. (He has high repute with me, partly because of his willingness to hoover up idea-stuff).
Carved bowls from bits of log - ah, they are satifying thangs. Of course, you are doing it all wrong using a scorp. A gutter adz and bent gouge for the inside, axe and spokeshave for the outside, are the Korrect Path. So I have reported you to the fire brigade who will be 'round to burn your scorp any time now.
******
When on holiday in Wales (Newport, on Cardigan Bay) the hoosey we stayed at contained a biography of John Brown, as well as one of his chairs. He lived and worked not far away, apparently. The chair is a fine article and obviously constructed to both tradition and Mr Brown's careful developments and interpretations of it. The biography, however, reveals a somewhat bitter and judgemental character, too anxious to demonise attitudes other than his own. In short, he seemed at war with the world as it is. Very sad.
I wish you good play with your own chair. Mind you follow the Brown directives to the letter, or you may have to deal with what will probably be his tedious and moaning ghost. :-)
Lataxe
You know me David, I use all the wrong tools and make any number of deals with the devil to get the wood to shape.
I have Brown's Stick Chair book. It is rather low key and pleasant. He hardly comes off as someone of poor temperment or as someone who is less than humble. He uses a sculptors adze rather than a gutter adze for the seat and an engineer's vise at various steps etc. He seems all for the hand, and not much for the dogma of his own devices.
In the world of woodworking, at least, I don't find objectionable those who rail against the things they disagree with and for those they do, as long as they have passion and some measure of reason, tolerance is only required for those that are easily offended and need soothing and validation, after all.
Edited 8/19/2009 10:35 am ET by Samson
Mel ,
One important thing I have learned about doing woodwork for paying clients is very basic and had little to do with ww, communication , yup the major key to a successful outcome in every case .
I take extra time before any money exchanges hands to make sure all the finite details and expectations of all concerned have been met .
A secret Tip for carving : I worked with a carver from Mexico and he used Kerosene to rub on the wood to make it easier to carve .
regards from paradise dusty,just a boxmaker
Dusty in Paradise,I fully agree with you on communication with customers. The ability to find and cultivate and work with customers is more important to success as a woodworker than woodworking skills.I have never heard about the use of kerosene for carving. I will give it a try. Do you make decorative boxes (eg for jewelry, etc)?It is nice to live in Paradise.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel , You know I think those who have people skills are most likely to succeed at whatever they set out for . Many great craftsmen I've known have gone under from lack of other skills .
I have made quite a few smallish type of boxes over the years but I always go back to the first and my favorite type .Sort of like a candle box with a sliding lid in a groove , very simple not decorative other then the grain of the wood .
regards dusty
Dusty,Yes, yes, yes. Communication is KEY. Good communication prevents undue headaches and is something I really push for. If you know what they want and they know what you are providing, all is well. I would sooner be a poor woodworker and great communicator than the other way around if running a business as I am. EDIT: Hmmm. I just read your post just above this one...I've spoken to a guy who runs a business called "Dave's Pretty Good Woodwork". There - right there - it's out. The client knows they are not expecting premium stuff. As a high-shooter, I asked him why "Pretty Good"? He replied that it allows him to get away with a lot. It's not how good you are - it's where you set the bar. Underpromise and overdeliver, right?That kerosene tip sounds like Roc's favourite trick, alcohol on the end-grain to make it easier to plane.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodworks.com
and http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com) - Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Edited 8/19/2009 11:17 am by flairwoodworks
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