Sanity and peace in honest work

Sometimes I can’t tell another how I feel as I work. The joints from my chisel edge at first seem a long way off, but then, as if too suddenly, the frame stands immovably dependent on them. My choice in wood and the placement of pieces reflect my consciousness to the work. Tight joints split wood and loose joints leave only half the joint in cohesion. I care for each one and make them fit with exact firmness.

I live a busy worklife and much of what I do beyond making reaches into the future and lives of others. Some of my work is a struggle for me, but the struggle is important too. I feel pressures in decisions and choices, but then I pick up my ruler and a knife, make notes in my journal, see the wood peel from my piece of oak and there, sanity that seemed illusive in the mixture of my other work suddenly settles on me and I lose myself for a few hours to recompose my heart and mind and compose the work by my two hands.

As I work, the wood seems to ease me into a condition from which I can breath deeply and evenly. I work hard. My breath is hard; my muscles flex and relax intermittently and the firmness of my grip releases as I lift my work from the vise and rest it on the bench.

 

Sanity is the balance we strive for as we transform the randomness of chaos into sense and order. My work is very different than the work of most, yet at one time, not too long ago, my work was common to many. I make things with my hands and write the things I feel important for others to glean from; like thick irons work but so do thin ones and with half the effort, or heavy planes work, but they take twice the effort lighter ones take. I don’t care for thin shavings too much except if I need one. I never need a shaving a thousandth of an inch thick. I need a good shaving that removes the waste and leaves a good surface to the exact size I want. Every plane I own gives me that. I don’t worry too much about these things. I’ve owned just about every make of plane there is. Stanley Bed Rocks are rare in the UK because they didn’t make them here and the ones they did make in the US generally sell in the US mostly because of their nostalgia and not really any other reason. Heavy planes with thick irons take twice the effort to sharpen—that’s a fact. They don’t stay sharp twice as long, just a little longer. I’d rather have an iron that sharpens well and quickly. My thin irons equal thick irons and they are half, no, a fraction of the cost of thick irons. In 47 years of working wood my thin irons have never chattered.