I poised the lens of my newest camera within 9” of the most well preserved and valuable pieces of workmanship ever produced in wood. It was made 300 years ago to become one of if not the most well made violins ever made. Some might see its wealth in its saleable value at auction but of course its real worth is that it represented the life and lifestyle of a lifestyle instrument maker who worked to carve voices from wood. This alone impresses me beyond measure. The base price of this masterpiece violin? Start somewhere around £10,000,000 and then expect to pay much more. It will never be sold again. The “Messiah” stands isolated and encased from all other instruments. The case allows people like me to circle the instrument 360-degrees and to see detail we never saw the like of before. Surrounded by many stringed instruments, brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts and grandparents, the Messiah stands exclusive, yet the hope of its maker was the honour of sharing its own unique voice in the presence of many sympathetic strings. When you understand this, you that such isolation is rarity itself. Working wood in isolation is often enjoyed and I enjoy this from time to time, perhaps a few days apart, a week or a month, but the greatest joy is when makers work alongside one another, together, and with the common cause of restoring the craft to its former fulness for creative artisans to take back the real power of real woodworking. that’s what I believe in you see. Hand work with hand tools isn’t primitive, old fashioned, nostalgic, reenacted fantasy. The Messiah had a purpose and so too the preservation of this instrument. You see, thankfully, no machine, no router or power sander, no power carver will ever produce what a man did 300 years ago with a handful of hand tools. Just think about what we are doing; not just doing, changing and transforming. Did you know that this month we will reach nearly 1,000,000 if not more woodworkers worldwide with a message of long-needed change and every month this number increases as people change the ways they work wood and find the ever-deepening realms, spheres if you will, of real woodworking.The Middle One is a Strad Guitar
I wonder which ones of you will pursue your interest to become another Antonio Stradivarius? Who will make an instrument from pieces of spruce and maple or a guitar the like of which there is no other? I am pretty sure of one thing, and you can demonise me as a Luddite, it’s unlikely to be work with a computer numerical controlled because it’s not a man or a woman that creates the actual work but a machine. As we rebuild the future and restore the lost realms that defy the flawed concepts of machine-only woodworking we will wee new things emerge. Go on, develop real skill, you owe it to the future. Imagine your first new boat, a kayak, a piece for the White House that starts with a sketch on a pad as you sit one Tuesday afternoon in a recliner and you stand inside the Cabinet Room with your mates having your picture taken. Undo the damage and master skill. At the very worst you’ll enjoy working wood like never before and we will be backing you all the way.
The first pictures rang a bell… Opa (aka Wolfgang Uebel) worked in that museum in the 70s. I am always amazed at what humans hands, helped by a few tools, can make.
If you ever visit norther germany, try to drop by Celle, he will be more than happy to show you the shop.
I have worked with mine now for 55 years, 50 on a daily basis for 10 hours a day at least on average. Hands are an amazing construct that defy the mind, adapt to multidimensional situations and keep lifting, holding, working in complementary fashion even when they hurt. I love that don’t you?
Indeed, I love it. The same hands made our minds long ago, when we were but monkeys trying to transform the flint into a tool. I have the impression that if you don’t go through that same process yourself you are not able to become fully human, whatever human may mean. It was the close contact with clay and iron that made us human, and I think that’s still valid today.
Hi Paul thanks for a great article. It never ceases to amaze that such beautiful things were made such a long time ago with simple hand tools. Today people seem to be obsessed with machine tools and hand tools engineered to within a millimeter of their life. A great example of what can be achieved with skill and simple hand tools.
“Hand work with hand tools isn’t primitive, old fashioned, nostalgic, reenacted fantasy.”
My employer recently told me I was ‘living in a fantasy world’ by working with hand tools, so thanks for the reminder that I’m not the only one, and that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
“Go on, develop real skill, you owe it to the future. Imagine your first new boat, a kayak… …that starts with a sketch on a pad as you sit one Tuesday afternoon in a recliner”
This is fascinates me: the chance to create something beautiful from esentially nothing: just wood a few sharp edges.
But more than that, I love the opportunity with hand tools to see beauty come out of people: “Messiah” is beautiful, but seeing a person who had no hope, and yet who now faces the future with confidence through a simple skill, encouragement and the experience of being trusted and achieving something is far, far more beautiful to me. This person may well go on and make something as good as ‘Messiah’, they may not, but I love the look on people’s faces when they discover “I can do something”. That is what draws me to hand tool woodwork.
I’ve seen blindness like this throughout my life. Always remember that men who say such things are undeveloped. It’s the equivalent of trying to grasp something with stumps instead of a fully developed hand. They simply cannot see because they think they already have advanced to higher levels. That’s why the blind lead the blind.
Well put.
Its wonderful to see such examples of craft and artisanry! Whenever I see things like that the first thing I think of is that their maker imbued part of themselves into the piece. Every mark, every cut was put there with thought and purpose and probably with a little bit of love too. That is what is missing with machine made stuff. You never get the same sense of soul. As much as museums are great in that they preserve these things so that we can see what human creativity can and has produced, I have an anthropomorphic way of looking at handmade things and it always makes me sad to see things like the violins and guitars behind glass where they will never sing again. Maybe that’s a little maudlin, but there it is.
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The first pictures rang a bell… Opa (aka Wolfgang Uebel) worked in that museum in the 70s. I am always amazed at what humans hands, helped by a few tools, can make.
If you ever visit norther germany, try to drop by Celle, he will be more than happy to show you the shop.
I have worked with mine now for 55 years, 50 on a daily basis for 10 hours a day at least on average. Hands are an amazing construct that defy the mind, adapt to multidimensional situations and keep lifting, holding, working in complementary fashion even when they hurt. I love that don’t you?
Indeed, I love it. The same hands made our minds long ago, when we were but monkeys trying to transform the flint into a tool. I have the impression that if you don’t go through that same process yourself you are not able to become fully human, whatever human may mean. It was the close contact with clay and iron that made us human, and I think that’s still valid today.
Hi Paul thanks for a great article. It never ceases to amaze that such beautiful things were made such a long time ago with simple hand tools. Today people seem to be obsessed with machine tools and hand tools engineered to within a millimeter of their life. A great example of what can be achieved with skill and simple hand tools.
“Hand work with hand tools isn’t primitive, old fashioned, nostalgic, reenacted fantasy.”
My employer recently told me I was ‘living in a fantasy world’ by working with hand tools, so thanks for the reminder that I’m not the only one, and that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
“Go on, develop real skill, you owe it to the future. Imagine your first new boat, a kayak… …that starts with a sketch on a pad as you sit one Tuesday afternoon in a recliner”
This is fascinates me: the chance to create something beautiful from esentially nothing: just wood a few sharp edges.
But more than that, I love the opportunity with hand tools to see beauty come out of people: “Messiah” is beautiful, but seeing a person who had no hope, and yet who now faces the future with confidence through a simple skill, encouragement and the experience of being trusted and achieving something is far, far more beautiful to me. This person may well go on and make something as good as ‘Messiah’, they may not, but I love the look on people’s faces when they discover “I can do something”. That is what draws me to hand tool woodwork.
I’ve seen blindness like this throughout my life. Always remember that men who say such things are undeveloped. It’s the equivalent of trying to grasp something with stumps instead of a fully developed hand. They simply cannot see because they think they already have advanced to higher levels. That’s why the blind lead the blind.
Well put.
Its wonderful to see such examples of craft and artisanry! Whenever I see things like that the first thing I think of is that their maker imbued part of themselves into the piece. Every mark, every cut was put there with thought and purpose and probably with a little bit of love too. That is what is missing with machine made stuff. You never get the same sense of soul. As much as museums are great in that they preserve these things so that we can see what human creativity can and has produced, I have an anthropomorphic way of looking at handmade things and it always makes me sad to see things like the violins and guitars behind glass where they will never sing again. Maybe that’s a little maudlin, but there it is.