Why do I do what I do?????
Look at these messages I receive. This is the whole reason I do what I do. If you think I am an inspiration, think again. You are my inspiration!
From Israel
Hello Paul,
You are helping me very much, You inspire me with your passion to working wood by hand. After putting the kids to sleep I get down to the basement and start working, conquering my fear of bad result and repeating the words next time will be better. Thanks you for sharing your huge knowledge and doing it with a smile and modesty.
From Croatia
Mr G
Hi Mr. Sellers,
First of all let me thank you for all the effort you put in this blog as I find it very valuable source of information and even more importantly the source for different way of thinking. English is not my mother tongue so please forgive me if I write something incorrectly. Let me briefly introduce myself, I’m 40 years old electrical engineer coming from Croatia. Couple of years ago I started to show some interest for woodworking. Since no one I knew had anything to do with woodworking all information and knowledge I collect from books and Internet. And off course that pointed me toward machines so I started to buy equipment and fill up my garage with it. And that worked for some time but since woodworking is my hobby and my relax time, after a while I felt that dealing with all this machines and stuff wasn’t that much different then dealing with stuff I do on my work. It wasn’t that much fun and I felt like I don’t learn any new skills. At the very verge of thinking how all this was big mistake I discovered yours DVD’s (unfortunately no books) and it open whole new world to me!
Now I completely enjoy all the time I spend in my garage and feel like I’m finally learning some new skills. Even though I’m still very new at this (and honestly not very good) I feel strange confidence and have great sense of accomplishment every time I do something right. And all this is because of your teaching and philosophy. So once again thank you for that. I’m still at pretty basic stuff (learning how to sharpen by hand, how to use chisels, saw straight line, make board square using old Stanley #3 and so on). It is frustrating sometimes but I feel like eventually I will get there.
Sorry for this long introduction. Reason I’m writing you is question about planes. Although Croatia is great place for living it is not so good place if you want to buy woodworking tools. The stores have poor offer, second hand market practically don’t exist and buying over Internet is still complicated if not impossible in some cases. Hence, only places where you can buy hand plane are big stores and they sells only wooden hand planes (they look like classical European hand plane with horn at front). When I look these planes I have feeling they are more intended for carpenters and not for fine woodworking. Reason I believe this is because mouth opening is so wide and far from iron blade that I think it is suitable only for thick shavings and there is no possibility for adjustment of any kind. So my question is, do you think, based on your experience, mouth opening plays such significant role that those planes can’t be used for fine woodworking? And how much of importance mouth openings are?
Anyhow, sorry for this long message and thanks again for this great web site and your effort in trying to educate us new to this wonderful craft (and art).
Sincerely yours,
SK