Some more Real Woodworking

These are some of the additional items of real woodworking for you to look at, contemplate and respect. None of them can be mass made because they demand the handwork of the men who made them. This hand skill doesn’t happen overnight but comes from the demand of self imposed, constant discipline. This is the demand of any crafting artisan and it’s the passage through which we must all pass, regardless of age or gender.

To many, those who work in craft are often today seen as undisciplined extroverts working outside the system of accepted occupations. That may be because the bench is often untidy and the shop in need of cleaning and clearing from time to time. But the outcome of the chips and shavings give evidence to what has been yielded to the cutting edge of the chisel and gouge. These items credit the men who made them with a quality of life seldom experienced today.

Tony Dew made this rocking horse and hundreds more that have emerged from the wood he carved. Give me the machine that can replace this.

Now of this child’s Windsor chair. Hard to imagine a crinoline stretcher receiving stem tenon back braces and all from English yew.

This bevy of planes came from the hands of Phil Edwards under his brand name Philly Planes. Floats from Lie Nielsen cleared the beds, throats and cheeks wells pristinely. These are not sandwiched wood in the Krenov style but made completely from solid sections as in growth.

The bowl in mid turn comes of course from the gouge and has a sculpted rim. It’s a beast of a machine that holds what was once made on a simple wooden frame one hundredth the weight with little more than two steel spikes. But the wood is cut by the free hand and direction of the cutting edge, which relies totally on the decisions he makes.