Lifestyle Woodworker. What?

When I’m working at my workbench, whether at work or at home, I find myself. It’s a place where, in all things, no matter what, I seem best able to makes sense of what’s misunderstood in a highly confusing world and my personal saneness seems best able to thrive and survive in the entangled web of ever-increasing complexities. It’s always been that way if I think about it. One minute insanity, the next peace and wholeness.

A workbench, some metal files I may never have even used before at that time, the smells of oils and other things that, when seen away from a workbench, make no sense, suddenly are all sensible things. My teachers in school never seemed at all able to understand what tools meant to a child like me. Though that was really inconsequential, I did notice it so perhaps it was more influential in the negative than I thought. When I removed myself from maths and English language classes, history and geography, I was no longer the problem in the classroom. Of course the teachers were no longer the problem either. I didn’t need them to teach me those subjects as my parents taught me to read and write, grammar and maths facts before I went there. In school, it seemed to me at least, that I learned about prejudices and that I had to tolerate all things I should not be tolerant of. Bullying for instance was one. In woodworking and art, craft and metalworking these things left me alone as I could indeed shut the door and leave them outside.

Me making a rocking chair.

In the workshops and craft rooms there were no bullies there to taunt me and poke at me because for some reason bullies seemed not to like creative realms. In the essence of my learning to appreciate craft and work and the art of working itself I truly thrived in there. This was where, when I was drilling steel and melting alluminium, I could fully see purpose and use my imagination enough to feel myself for the first time being fed and nurtured. I not only survived but I just thrived there more than anywhere I had ever been since school began. I think this is what adults feel when they are deprived of access to crafting in younger years and find it when more mature years come.

When I offered even the lowly and poorly sharpened chisels to wood, and spokeshaved shaped square sections into round and oval profiles, maths became of little matter. I just spaced out from all other things, yes, but it was here that I mastered the reading of rulers. I learned about imperial measurements and understood the sensible way the rulers graduated in eighths, sixteenths and thirty-seconds and even sixty-fourths of an inch. This, I’ve learned since, was something incomprehensible in Europe where they could make no sense of it yet it all made great sense to this 13 year old boy who according to his teachers was “ineducable.” Imperial measuring made absolute sense to me and I will always love it. I can work in inches divided into eighths and tenths and then divide those proportions into sixty-fourths or hundredths, twentieths and so on. This fineness level is more than acceptable because wood can expand or contract much more than that if the weather changes during a day. I also work comfortably with metric as I have to and I love metric too. Anyone that wants accuracy can simply work in whichever system they want. I like individual choice and I will fight any corner for it.

Folding chairs work well for me at home as they take up so little space. Now a bike…

I am often asked what’s meant when I say I am a lifestyle woodworker. When I am asked I realise I own something others certainly don’t have, might not always understand or actually even like. I think mostly that’s because people can’t actually fathom it. No college or university degree ever qualified me for it. It doesn’t exist. Most often they do understand that I am saying something different, but they then want to challenge me. As a boy of 14, some of you know, I wanted to work with my hands. It wasn’t that I was shunning all else, just that I liked being outdoors, in sheds, gardening, on farms, things like that. I didn’t know anything about higher education, college or consider things such as university. I didn’t know what academia was at all, I still don’t. What I knew, even at that young age, was that I could pour that molten metal into sand moulds I had formed and make a bust from something I’d carved in polystyrene foam in an art room. That I could make knives from commercial hacksaw blades to cut the styrofoam and carve it. I knew life was more multi-dimensional without my sitting bored in a classroom full of kids and then lectures too and that I wanted to fuse with another three-dimensional world I fit well with and fit into whenever and wherever I could. The things I found in a classroom could not be found there. In reality I began taking control of my own life when I was around 13 years of age. I might not have been able to describe that then but that is what was happening. One or two teachers in craft areas saw this and encouraged me. I stepped off the educational conveyor belt and it was the start of styling life for me. I was moving from being a child and becoming an adult. Therefore it was for me something best described as lifestyle.

I became a woodworker by my own will. No one else’s. No one steered me or really inspired me. Or if they did I was in no way conscious of it. My one woodwork teacher told me not to become a woodworker. But I couldn’t deny that whenever I saw a workshop, workbenches and tools, I felt a sort of reverential respect for the people that used them. Few others seemed to feel this or understand it.

All of my teachers and trainers and subsequently masters too were male. In my world there were no women working as crafting artisans. In many ways that was an imbalance that was a societal wrong. It was something abnormal that was normalised by educationalists through the centuries. Such was the time.

Then training others, apprentices and such, became transformative for them and also for me. It was yet more conscious effort and decision making.
Phil has gone from apprentice woodworker to teaching and film making to management of videography.

My transforming from boy to man was conscious and progressive. As my entry into an apprenticeship unfolded I felt conscious that something was shaping me but that it was less my choice than that of my bosses and my fellow workers. It was man-shaped for men. In college too it was the same, although my attendance rate there was about the same as in grade school (grade being regular school USA). The education was mildly helpful thinking back, but the teachers there were somehow unreal, not craftsmen, not crafting artisans at all. Again, it was man-shaped education, devoid of balance, designed for industry not art and craft. By the time I was in my early 20’s I had gained ever-more control. I shaped aspirations like a revolutionary might work under ground for a season until the launch in opposition to the status quo. I began to shape my my future to include my personal hopes and desires. I stepped off the conveyor belt for the first time in my adult life.  I wanted something I had not seen elsewhere because there was nothing existing that  I could admire or use as my model. That was good and very positive, not negative at all. You see each life is as much a life of individuality as an ear lobe or a fingerprint and therefore each life should be as individual as the life of the individual. I knew I had to earn a living. I had a wife and daughter, a mortgage and a car to run–at age 22! Imagine such a thing these days but that was who I had become. I was 21 when I put down a mortgage deposit. I held my planned daughter in my arms as a married man at 22.

Me carving motifs for a restoration work.

At this time in my life I knew working in the woodworking industry would always mean bosses owning my work and thereby they would also own me. These men were not craftsmen in any way, they just owned money.  They were unsympathetic to any form of art or craftsmanship and saw all worth only in something that they could buy. All they had they bought. They never made anything. For them it would always mean I was earning their money and speed meant more product from the minimum they would pay me. I wanted that to end. I knew for me to thrive I would need to have more than they had and in my own dominion. If I had that then in some measure at least I would be better able to control what, when, how and where I made what I created. I wanted to get off the conveyor belts of commerce as best I could,  forever!

John Winter went from apprentice to maker to close friend.

I wanted to establish a quality of workmanship reminiscent of 17th – 18th century craftsmanship and to design my pieces based on truly proven technology. This did  not in any way mean some quest for a nostalgic past, or indeed a quest to shun machinery and use only hand tools, as many accuse me of. Not at all. I enjoy my machines. I felt that if it was important for me, then people working with me, that trained with me, no matter their work type, be it anything from woodworking to office skills, filming, editing and so on, I wanted them to carefully craft their work by ever progressing their skill and knowledge too. To do that everything done must be carefully considered and thought through so that whatever becomes automatic is established because of its quality and not because it became just status quo. It must be well thought through to become established so.  You know, think about it, build it like an artist makes well crafted work as part of their lifestyle. So, coming to that conclusion, I started mapping out what was important to me. First was to honour others with the quality of workmanship I could provide. Out of that came the provision for my family with it. Now I’m not saying everything was perfect, but it was a vision. I didn’t want any 9-5 mentality to fracture off worklife from other areas such as leisure and family. For me one should better flow from one area into the other as more a continuum of required rest and recreation, be that through family, gardening, being with your dog and taking a canoe trip. Whereas 9-5 does make sense in business and so many prefer that, it need not automatically be so for everyone.

My lectern is a workbench in a University college and my audience, people who look at working this way as a possible way out.

Especially might this be so for individuals.  I wanted to go from my house to my workshop. Two hours driving in traffic seemed wasteful to me if indeed what I worked at could be done from or not too far from my home. It was more a matter of good economics providing for my physical and emotional wellbeing. Rather than cramming family life and or friends in at weekends and after work, when I was emotionally and physically drained, I could include my family with me. So for much of my adult life I have worked that way. It’s a lifestyle for me whereas for others, lifestyle starts outside work. Lifestyle for many is where the word was hijacked to describe something mostly superficial, such as a fashion brand selling an aspirational image in the form say of a ‘lifestyle collection’, as if you can just buy a lifestyle that is simply the decoration for your living. If you buy enough of the right things the ‘lifestyle’ part will happen on its own!  Of course this has happened with the sale of equipment used in woodworking too.  Once I knew thisI didn’t want it to continue. Thankfully I did change it. Of course this is not just for familied people but for anyone in a small group with friends and associates. It is in no way exclusive but totally inclusive according to the individual pursuit.

The people I have been with throughout my work life, 50 plus years of it now, have all in some measure great or small enriched my life. You may not necessarily be able to take that to the bank, but who cares. I put all this together to try to reason with those who don’t altogether understand or agree, that’s all. My hope is that it empowers others to strive towards a lifestyle they might better engineer for themselves. Working toward independence is usually about dovetailing your life with an existing industry of some kind and not rejecting a reality of earning a living. You’ll find your way, as I have mine through five decades now.


 

20 Comments

  1. Hi Paul,
    I would love to read a post about using imperial for best use in woodworking. I do find feet, inches, 1/2, 3/4, etc so much more intuitive, although metric also works in some instances. Where I come unstuck in working out calculations in imperial, such as when you are dividing say, 5 7/8 into three. How would you work that out quickly in your head? I would love to become as proficient in this as so many Americans are!
    Thanks
    Gary

    1. When I was a child this sort of math was second nature for USA school children, but it may no longer be the case.

      The first method is to focus on the math problem to get the absolute exact answer. Your example of 5 7/8″ divided by 3 is represented as (5 + 7/8) * 1/3 which is 5/3 + 7/24. Now we convert to a common denominator of 24 which is (8/8 * 5/3) + 7/24 which is 40/24 + 7/24 which is 47/24. Now pull out the whole number to get 1 23/24″. I tried to spell it out very slowly and explicitly for those not familiar with fractions, but in my head the math went very quickly.

      But we could step back and look at the bigger picture, 5 7/8 inches is nearly 6 which divides nicely by 3 to give us 2. But it isn’t quite 2 but rather 1/3 of 1/8 short of 2 which is 2 – 1/24. On my tape measure I’m just going to go for 1 31/32 which is an error of 0.26mm, more than accurate enough for my wood working.

      1. Rather than switching types of units of measure from imperial to metric and wind up guessing how much 0.26 mm is why not work it out one step father from 32nds to 64ths. You can do this in your head. 1/8 = 8/64, 8 is close to 9 which is divisible by 3 so 3/64 is close and measurable using most imperial measuring devices. So your error will be 1/3 of a 64th and you can see how much that is by looking at the scale. Also 1/32 (0.03125) is close to 0.030 inches for a mental reference to convert to decimals of an inch. 3/64 would then be close to 1.5 x 0.03 = .045 (3/64 = 0.046875) so error is < 0.002. Now I know how much that is but 0,26mm I don't have a clue. LOL A lot more difficult to describe than cyphering it out in your head.

  2. Isn’t that what life is all about? Never stop learning, never stop growing. Try to pass on your experiences to benefit those who are coming along behind you. And do it all as gently as you possibly can.

  3. Paul
    Your schooldays memories have prompted memories of my own: I’d been sent to an expensive private school (in Australia in the 1950s they’d been modelled on the English, even to the extent of labelling themselves “public” schools which they were anything but!!) and was entertained mightily by a disruptive classmate (Barber, P. where are you now….) who would employ pyrotechnics (e.g. setting a fire inside a school desk such that a column of flame and smoke erupted from the inkwell hole; raising a flaming hand, that had been dipped in methylated spirits and lit, to give the wrong answer to a teacher’s question) to ensure that he was ejected from maths, English, and most other classes. “Good Morning boys, and Barber get out” was the opening line to most maths classes.
    And Barber of course did not mope about in the cloisters but rather made a bee-line for the woodworking room where he crafted beautiful things.
    AND had a warm reception from the woodwork teacher who understood.
    I envied his resolve (Barber’s that is; but upon reflection I think probably both of them). And 55 years later still do.

  4. Paul,

    Thank you for this reflection. As a high school teacher, I see many students like you were. My school is just now investing again in shop classes where kids can build using their mind, imagination, and their hands. The work we intentionally or unintentionally communicated as being undignified will again be shown it’s true dignity. In so being, students who were told working with your hands is for those who just aren’t smart enough for college will again be encouraged to answer the call of their hearts and their passion in a way that is starting to be respected once more. Please pray that the same spirit that guided you toward your calling and lifestyle may too guide my young men and women students. May they also find a teacher worthy and capable of guiding them toward truth and life.

    Thank you for all you do.

    Justin

    1. Here we have somebody who should be running the US Department of Education. Sadly, folks like you never get the chance. Well at least few highschoolers will benefit.

  5. As the fox told the Little Prince, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

  6. This post summed upped exactly how I feel. I am tired of the so called rat race. I liked it a lot better when I was working with my hands.

    I can explain to you what academia is.

    I work in academia and as far as I can see, it is just a bunch of book smart people with no real world experience. They create an unreal world where there is no real expectations. Just thinking about putting forth an ounce of effort is applauded, where there is no good or bad, right or wrong. As long as they feel they are smart and other laud over the intelligence (even if it is faked). It is a society that protects one another because in the real world where you would have to a standard (I do not mean fit inside the lines, but actually produce) they would not make it. So they promote those that are not a threat.

    Not everyone is this way, but as a whole this is what the educational system is, especially the higher ed system.

  7. I can relate to this Paul. I worked my way through college, G.I. Bill , construction and carpentry jobs in the summer . I was married, one son, but thought that degree was going to be my ticket to easy street. When I finally graduated with my B.S Degree, I found I liked the part time jobs better! But went into a field more related to my degree. Now retired, but spending most of my time in my shop…and loving it ! As for the B.S Degree, we all know what that stands for. M.S. means More of the Same and PhD is just Piled Higher and Deeper.

  8. It’s a shame that pubic school, which should be a garden of learning, is often a mirror of Lord of the Flies.

    No better incentive to learning your trade than having to put food on the table for your family.

  9. My father told me “if it doesn’t fit get a bigger hammer” he was actually a lot older than me and a lot wiser?

  10. You are speaking directly to my soul. For me, I was just shy of my twelfth birthday, when my grandfather passed away. I inherited his big wooden tool chest, filled with mostly poor quality tools, but it had a profound effect on me. From that day forward, some 45 years later, I have this feeling that I can make anything I set my mind to. Making, and the desire to Make is central to who I am as a person. Thank you!

    1. I know you are speaking to Paul so forgive me. But from your statement above I feel that those inherited tools were of the highest quality

  11. I have never lived in a world where feet and inches were the standard of measurement, it has always been metric. We were never taught anything feet and inches growing up and yet I somehow learned over the years about them, probably because they are on the ‘other’ side of the ruler. The funny, magical thing is I can visualise inches and quarter inches et cetera much better than I can millimetres

  12. I regularly see a comment like Allan’s one : “I can visualise inches and quarter inches et cetera much better than I can millimètres”.
    When I learned the metric system 55 years ago at the age of 9, we were using centimètres for our drawings in our school notebooks (which were squared with a 1cm spacing). So I have a pretty good idea of what a centimètre is.
    I think centimètres and mètres are much more appropriate to woodworking then millimètres.
    Millimètres are OK for metal engineering. In engineering, it is always easier to use mega, kilo or milli as multiple of any unit but not for woodworking.
    Here furniture dimensions are always advertised in cm.
    Sylvain

  13. TO divide a line of known length or unknown length into 3 or any other no you can draw the line and then with a ruler and square as shown in one of Pauls videos divide the length into required no of sections.

  14. Wow! This is way beyond the smell of sawdust my friend. I relate to this article with a resounding “Amen”. Oh how I wish the world revolved more around the purpose of the individual rather than the few powerful. Here in the States the first thing to get chopped in the school budget is the arts. Students who should have an apprenticeship sit in classes that feed them high doses of the importance of money, looks, and sports; while at the same time they hear lectures on bullying and social reform. No wonder they are confused about their purpose, gender and race! I thank God all the time I learned to read a rule, draw with a sharpened pencil & cut a straight line. So thank you for teaching the way you do & making your thoughts available in your blog. Surely there is a place for the powerful and a need for a solid economy, unfortunately power is often abused – and money, not people, becomes the thing men love most.

Comments are closed.

Privacy Notice

You must enter certain information to submit the form on this page. We take the handling of personal information seriously and appreciate your trust in us. Our Privacy Policy sets out important information about us and how we use and protect your personal data and it also explains your legal rights in respect of it. Please click here to read it before you provide any information on this form.