What Hand Tools Have Given Me

Every few days I look through my journal ten years ago to the date to see what I was doing. At the end of July through the early days of August I was working on making a cello for and with Joseph. I’ve written on this experience somewhere and said that this was the single most life changing experience of my life. So multi-faceted was this three month interlude in my life, no piece I ever worked on comes close. Remember, when you you get to the end of such work you hear a voice no one’s ever heard before and it all came from the cutting edges of saws and planes and chisels. Remember too that the cello reflects the depth of tone paralleling the human voice like no other, hence, when cellos play together it’s referred to as a ‘choir‘ of cellos. Joseph plays the cello still and taught cello for several years, but what this did for a father and son may never be quantified. This is what real woodworking has meant to me and by real woodworking I do mean mastering hand skills to a level that no fear or doubt as to the outcome exists in the using of them.

Joseph and I still work together most days where we progress our ideas with great anticipation. Today our work is mostly crafting and shaping the lives of others aspiring to master woodworking and, to be honest, it’s a beautiful voice we are hearing all the more. Changed lives is more common to us now than ever it was before simply because we reach so many people looking for answers. My email is full of people telling me how frustrated they were until they started following woodworking masterclasses and also our YouTube channel. Often they declare how much their lives have changed and how they look forward always to each day.

Ten years ago to the day Joseph would be 16 and I was 56. We bantered back and forth as we cut the channel for the purfling with knives and a new chisel we designed and made for removing the waste. Some tools were so unique because we indeed designed and made them and others were adaptations to improve performance. This wooden plane is one we have made many times over and taught others to make in WWMC. Simple and effective tools like these are part of who we are or have become or are becoming when we become woodworkers. Reading through my journal I see how Joseph and I formed bonds with one another that most teenagers today might never find. There was so little conflict in the months it took to make the cello and when we were done we both understood one another in much deeper ways than we ever could have had using any other medium to bond us. Yes, we canoed rivers, dug gardens and swam together, walked our dogs for hours and learned other crafts besides woodworking along the way, but for some reason it was plumbing the depths of woodworking that created a sphere we could both relate to one another in most. Remember he was in the workshop from birth and I cannot recall a day when he wasn’t in there at some point either working or watching. I think Joseph’s love for music grew from this point and certainly mine was expanded into the classics. When I look for something soothing or exciting or inspiring I usually end up listening  Jacqueline Du Pre or then again Rostropovich playing Bach. Many afternoons as I worked I would hear Joseph playing this somewhere in a corner of the workshop. 

So you see, this is what hand tools have given me. Countless hundreds of people working with me through the years but especially my sons each of which I could safely allow in my workshop to work with them. Waking this morning and watching their lives through my journals reminds me of those things you just cannot buy, like a hand made cello and a plane made by hand to make it, sons, atmospheres of creativity. What a great day.