Creating New-genre Crafting Artisans – Investing in the Future

 

They Arrived From All Over

The class arrived ready and raring to go yesterday and of course it’s pretty much none stop from beginning to end. It seems at first that everything revolved around the least obvious tool of all the square because planing is always very much at the forefront on the first day, along with sharpening that is, and every plane stroke gets checked for accuracy.

New insights

It was fun to see the day unfold and for those who never did before pick up planes and saws and gauges and start using them. Yes. there are doubts and uncertainties in some measure in each one of them and no one wants to mess up or ask the seemingly dumb question but the unasked question is always the toughest one to answer. It’s not relaxed at all. I can feel the tension permeate the atmosphere because everyone wants to do it right and though we do our best to ensure successes all around, inevitably the greatest learn is from our mistakes and though some lessons can be hard, they are often well learned. No one messed up at all really. We closed the doors with the usual bang massive doors make in stone castle walls and walked don the hill past the castle to the cars parked below. For those afar off like Sweden and the south of England it’s off home to a B&B or a guest house or hotel, for me its the one mile drive to the village. The thing for me is this; dismantling false expectations and replacing it with understanding and patience makes the future dead certain. False hope never achieved anything. Giving them the reality that skill must be worked for and earned by repeated action seems a little daunting at first but then the results begin to show and everyone starts to see that the work is well worth the effort. Today we put meat on what we established yesterday. We start the making process. The make jointed parts into boxes with dovetails and I make and mould future craftsmen and women.

More on Planes Tonight

I have another blog on planes on its way and will hopefully post tonight. Ever seen a Preston version of the #4? There are some surprising nuances. What about the dado plane and the toothing plane and there is more on a neat little router I want to show you.