Tankard in Norsk Folkemuseum Collection Editor’s note: Master cooper, Marshall Scheetz sent this brief reflection from his research trip to Norway. During my two-week research trip to Norway, I got to visit deep fjords, mountains ground flat by glaciers, medieval stave churches, and vast museum collections of aging dairy buckets and beer tankards. Just because I have seen these things doesn’t necessarily mean they can be easily explained. I’m still processing this northern landscape and the objects I encountered. To be honest, it was culturally and historically overwhelming – each evening I had to walk the neighborhoods in order to sort my thoughts. Tankards and Cans at De Heibergske Samlinger collection, Sogn Folkemuseum Working with museum staff curators, restoration conservators,...
After we rived enough parts for two chairs, Kenneth opened a tool chest full of drawknives and I used a half-dozen different styles to begin refining the riven parts. Kenneth had spent many hours with these tools. He had no trouble using any of them, but knew the ones that fit his body best. I had the freedom to switch back and forth between drawknives, finding those that felt most natural to my hand and comparing them to the only drawknife I had used, an antique from my grandfather’s farm. Kenneth noticed that the handles of my grandfather’s knife had been bent out of parallel, so we spent the last part of the afternoon removing the wooden handles, heating up...
Most 21st-century woodworkers are self-taught, solitary creatives. They might have taken a class or two in the early days, but the vast majority of their projects are undertaken without the benefit of a shop mate. For the more reclusively inclined, this kind of isolation is in fact one of the major selling points of the hobby, but it cannot be denied that self-guided education has its drawbacks. I suspect many of my readers have picked up tips or learned entire new crafts through videos, books, or articles. We moderns live with an embarrassment of educational riches at our fingertips. At the same time, if we’re not careful, this à la carte approach can produce imbalance and underdevelopment. It’s easy for...
