As I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my article for Issue Twelve, I found myself struggling to put certain details into words. So today, I set up my computer at the workbench to put myself next to the work I was trying to describe. It’s amazing how much standing at the bench snaps so much into clarity. Writing in the abstract is a tricky thing because we can be off in our own little worlds in our heads, and we’re never brought to ask whether our ideas comport with reality. A lot of weird stuff comes out of that kind of exploration, but most woodworkers I know can smell that airy-fairy bunk a mile away. If it doesn’t work,...
“To those who say that machinery and the apparatus of living are merely instruments and devices which are without moral nature in themselves, but which can be used for either good or evil, I would point out that we are all influenced by the tools and means which we use. Again and again in the lives of individuals and of nations we see that when certain means are used vigorously, thoroughly and for a long time, those means assume the character and influence of an end in themselves. We become obsessed by our tools.”
– Richard B. Gregg, “The Value of Voluntary Simplicity”
We’re nearing the shortest day of the year, and it seems every year at this time I can just barely take it. The sun rose at 7:00 this morning and is beginning to set as I write this a few minutes before 4:00. Due to the thickening of the blood in this frigid season, everything in me seems to grind to a halt. It takes everything in me to keep up with the daily responsibilities (as pared back as they are). But I keep my head down and go about my tasks until it starts getting dark again. I do think there’s a healthy seasonality to this whole thing that I’ve yet to figure out how to align myself with....
I occasionally feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of uncompleted projects I have sitting around in my humble basement workshop. There’s that one corner where the old frame saw hangs, awaiting restoration and use. And that big slab of redwood over there – that’s going to be a table… eventually. When I get around to it. And the funny thing is, that mental “to-do” list never really shrinks. I have this issue where I’m working on some important project at the bench (say, a drawer for our bathroom vanity), but get sidetracked with experiments in flintknapping or my kids’ plans to make a longbow out of a length of PVC pipe. The vanity drawer gets set aside for a bit. It seems...
Here’s a new video in the “Setting Up Shop” series. This one is all about backsaws. What are they? Why do you need them? Which ones should you get? How many is too many?
Enjoy.
“A woodworker's hands develop in a special way with intense and concentrated use. The flesh becomes stronger and heavier in certain areas, better fitted to grasp and use the tools. He has a special intensity, a striving for perfection, a conviction that any task must be executed with all his skill.”
– George Nakashima, The Soul of a Tree: A Woodworker’s Reflections
Mike and I finally buttoned up the smithy roof today after much too long of a delay. “Delay” seems to be a buzzword these days. These beefy cedar shingles (7/8" thick at the butt end) should last a good long while. This crosses one big item off the endless to-do list around here. There’s a lot we have to get buttoned up leading into the house restoration, and this was one of the bigger items weighing on our minds. Finally getting a proper roof brings us back to two years ago, when Carpenters Without Borders was here hewing, joining, and laughing together. That project was one of the most intense and enriching experiences of our lives. We now consider ourselves...
Barn finds are the best finds.Last week on the Daily Dispatch, I put up a video comparing several saw totes, from an oddball old Disston D-8 thumbhole crosscut (?!) saw to a brand-new Spear & Jackson crosscut that is less than graceful in form (as most new hand saws are, sadly). I also shared an interesting tote I hadn’t seen before – it was found in a bucket of rusty tools in a friend’s barn. This handle has similarities to the Disston thumbhole tote, suggesting that it is intended for ripping. (A note about that idiosyncratic thumbhole crosscut saw – the Disstonian Institute website notes that “The thumbhole handle was also offered on 28" and 30" crosscut saws for a...
We all have epiphanies. If I were to list the few most significant “aha” moments in my woodworking career, the use of wooden bench planes would be at the top of the stack. I’ve argued elsewhere for the benefits of wooden planes, and I won’t take the time to rehearse it all now, but suffice it to say, investing a few hours in learning to use wooden planes radically changed my woodworking. And I don’t use that word lightly – I mean it changed my work at the root level. So, I’ve been posting at the Daily Dispatch quite a bit about wooden planes lately. I filmed a video examination of a pile of wooden smoothers, and I’ve been making a...
If you’re a survivor of the American education system, you probably remember the famous scene from Mark Twain’s 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. By pretending that the drudgery of whitewashing a fence is, in fact, deeply fun and deeply enviable, Tom hoodwinks his buds into doing his work for him while he kicks back and polishes off an apple. What you may not remember, though, are Tom’s observations after the trick: “Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make...
