Hey… Our new T-shirt will be headed our way soon. It’s one of our most edgy designs to date (just wait until you see it). It’ll look great with its vintage black color. Stay tuned on that. In anticipation of our new shirts, we have discounted our other T-shirts down to $18, including women’s and kids’. Oh, and we found two of our old “Cutting Edge Technology” shirts (one Medium and one XXL) in a shirt box and updated our store’s inventory. Move quick before they’re snatched up. p.s. Today, Mike and I are putting the finishing touches on our articles for Issue Eleven. Many of our authors have already turned in their manuscripts early! This one’s looking like...
This may appear a humdrum setting of desk work, or some high-schooler’s last-minute research-paper cram session. Nothing terribly captivating or particularly interesting. But to me, this morning’s scene from our dining table encapsulates one of the highlights of the editorial year at M&T: It’s article-writing time. Every six months, Joshua, our authors, and me buckle down and gather our thoughts and sources for an intensely focused time of capturing concepts on paper. We try to maintain a conscious balance in each issue of the practical, the historical, and the philosophical, and in our advance planning we look to fill perceived holes with ideas that have been in the waiting. These genres require radically different approaches to research and writing – for...
Mortise & Tenon Magazine · 29 – "Craft as a Daily Practice" Many of us find it hard to get time in the shop. Work is demanding, home repairs pile up, the kids need to be carted to and from extra curriculars. When life is full, how can we make room for craft? In this episode, Joshua and Mike explore the value of regular, disciplined practice in a low-investment way. What if you spent only 10-15 minutes per day making shavings? Could you find ways to put tools in your living space so that it’s easy to pick it up for a few minutes? In episode 29, the guys argue that regular craft practice (even if it’s only...
Would you say hand tools are slower than power tools? That is totally dependent upon the “programming” of the operator. A person using hand tools can produce a piece of furniture just as fast, if not faster, than a person using power tools provided that the wielder of the hand tools thinks the appropriate way. There is virtually no need to four-square boards for the hand-tool woodworker; we just make a reference edge and face before making the other side look “good enough.” We don’t have to make test cut after test cut to set up a router table; we grab a molding plane with the shape coded in and go to town. If your try plane is appropriately sharp...
“Woodworking requires many skills. Acquiring them provides an apprenticeship for the thousand judgments that must be made to shape a good wood object.”
– George Nakashima, The Soul of a Tree: A Woodworker’s Reflections
Mike and I are working on the launch of a new program (soon-to-announced) that has brought us deeper into research of some historic texts. Although I’ve read through many of these, it’s always interesting to take a fresh look at the way processes or tools are described by various authors throughout history. Take for example the trying plane. Is it just another name for a “jointer” plane? What in the world is a “long” plane then? Nicholson lists all three as distinct. Moxon only knows of the jointer. Denning sees them as distinct, but believes cabinetmakers rarely have any use for the jointer. And don’t get me started about the “fore/jack” plane discussion. I settled into my own understanding of...
We just got some new stickers in the other day! Two designs this go-around. The first is a die-cut profile of my fore plane with an abbreviated saying from technology scholar John Culkin: “Our Tools Shape Us.” If you’ve read through Issue Ten, you’ll know that this was the theme that wove those articles together. As we use our tools to shape the world, our tools influence us and ultimately shape our perspective on the world. Not sure what I mean? I recommend reading my article in that issue called “Ready Hands” for further explanation. The second sticker is based on a quote from John Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture: “Therefore, when we build, let us think that we...
We receive a number of unlooked-for visitors to the M&T shop during the warmer months of the year, when we tend leave the front door open. There must be something particularly appealing that draws passersby in, diverting from their important errands. These guests tend not to stay very long, often flying through the building in a single hyperactive lap before heading on their way. I’m talking, of course, about birds. The springtime chorus around the shop can be clamorous. There are the red-winged blackbirds down by the pond, nuthatches and chickadees in the woods, a family of phoebes nesting by the blacksmith shop, woodpeckers in the pines, not to mention the occasional osprey or bald eagle crying from some great height....
Now that we’ve covered the shop and benches in our video series, we’re moving into tools. This time, Mike discusses the use of the fore plane (as well as his scrub plane). These planes are our workhorses – at least 75% of our planing is handled by these guys. If you don’t have a heavily cambered plane with a wide-open mouth, you’re not going to be able to work with any efficiency. You need one of these planes.
I didn’t know what to say. I was there because I knew that Another Work is Possible was selected as a finalist for “Excellence in Publishing,” but I never expected to hear my name announced as the winner. The 2021 Maine Literary Awards took place last Thursday evening, and I am still in disbelief. My first book, Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847), was a finalist at the 2019 ceremony, but ultimately not the winner. I felt honored to even be a finalist in 2019 and was content with that achievement again this year. Regardless of the fact that I knew it was still a possibility my book would be selected this time around, there was...
