Finding Yourself
I just read a book written by someone trying to establish a sense of belonging. Throughout the pages, the writer strove to establish the reality of being isolated in communities by the communities in which the writer was “born and bred.” There was a cruelness to it as is mostly the case with bigotry and hate. Fear of rejection permeated the author’s experience of life as growth from birth to adulthood took place; in reality, different phobias affect how we perceive life growing into any society be that a guild, a community, a workplace, religious order or whatever enterprise you care to name. With two wars currently raging we see societal systems on one hand rejecting the other and then two ancient religions on the other. These major assaults will be outside most of our personal zones but looking at the writer’s effort to balance out the opposition with reason you can see how it often takes another extreme to counter the energy of prejudice.
In my earliest days just before woodworking began I experienced life differently than my then young peers. When school finished I walked to a papermill to work with my dad baling cardboard for recycling for several hours. No one I knew worked like this five evenings a week and then all day on Saturdays and Sundays until 1 p.m. Was this abuse, child labour infringement or was it what you did to support a family of six children and two adults? It was the latter and I enjoyed being with my dad for these extended periods. When that work ended I began my apprenticeship. I was already used to working, trained for it and by it. I have no regrets. even today my peers rarely match the workdays in output and ethic I established early on in my life although some do. We work a 35-hour week here in the UK. My week still doubles that and the only reason it does is because I still, still love what I do, Since my early days of making alone I have added in to my day other aspects equally important to woodworking; writing, drawing, designing and photography and videography support my output but then too I enjoy being with my friends and family too. Am I the last of a dying breed? Quite possibly, I think. Go back sixty and seventy years ago and woodworkers worked as I do. That’s now the rarity and scarcity and that’s okay too. What matters is following what you are called to do and be.
In recent years I have seen a marked change in the volume of people seeking woodworking as a portion of their lifestyle. It’s nice. Thirty years ago half the people I met in woodworking scoffed and a percentage of professionals still do but only on the most minimal of levels now. I think even they see and learn from us. The might even discover methods that increase their performance as many contact me and say so. Respect for hand-tool methods of woodworking has steadily and progressively grown and especially amongst the amateur realm which is a hundred times more than the professional version now. I believe that these are the ones who searched with rue sincerity for what they perceived woodworking to be, theysincerely looked for the deeper things in making and found what they personally wanted to invest their lives in. Instead of a computer and printer they wanted a piece of wood, some gravers and a hand press to print their art. This for me is finding yourself. It takes something to persevere against opposition in the form of opposers. Peer pressure is a powerful aggressor that often goes unseen because, well, it can be hidden inside some form of aggression be that passive aggression in the form joking or overt aggression as I have experienced when I said, Nah! Not for me!. Here is something of an example:
This box is made entirely by machine yet spuriously claims “The Classic Look of Hand-Cut Dovetails.” signifying a belief that the end result matches that of hand work without the effort and skill the other needs. It dismisses what we see being as critically important as the actual work we want and pursue itself. It dismisses the possibility and probability that we might actually want effort and challenge that is integral to our working and our making. What does it matter so long as it looks the same? Doesn’t ‘the end justify the means,‘ after all? The inference of course, is that wrong or unfair methods may be used if the overall goal as the outcome is good. But the assumption for us is that that bit in between wood sorting as a starting point and then completing is immaterial or that it is best evaluated in terms of energy and speed. For me, us, we want the muscle build, the directing of energies over periods that truly cost us, the mental challenges and so on. On a recent project, making my combs, I stopped midway to make a refining tool from steel brass and wood. It took me an hour using the lathe, the blowtorch, hacksaw, file and such. I didn’t hesitate for a second, saw the need, went to the metal vise with an old bandsaw blade, softened the steel and made what I needed. It worked beautifully. Who does such things? Who do you know that even thinks that way?
My concern in all of my work is that without inputting from a background of making and even selling work too we might not discover the deeper us. Can we have a calling deferred for different reasons? Can we be having the DNA of making programmed out of us so that we ultimately dismiss and even destroy the deeper us because we have lost sight of the meaning of handwork? It’s my belief that we can and are. Conversations no longer discuss the making of things and people more rarely encounter a maker of any kind. Despite this though, our audience steadily grows in the face of strong opposition. I think that people are finding themselves and finding a form of escape.
I know the reasoning behind using machines to process wood and for the main part, I agree with it. But the demand for deeper knowledge proves my change in direction 30 years ago. Back then there were only half a dozen woodworking schools in the USA. It was the dearth of woodworking knowledge that led us to search and the internet became the new platform for the search to begin or continue with and through. I was slow to the mark because, well, I didn’t own a computer until 2005 and use the internet platforms until 2008. Our first videos came in 2011. But that was no loss. Our experience stood much stronger from hands-on courses spanning three decades and more. This was the backdrop for my writing curriculum and books. My love for wood and woodworking has grown into a love for amateur woodworkers. They are the ones that will take hand tool woodworking forward. this was my plan from early on when my peers tried to make me feel uncomfortable. But I owned my craft through the skills I had mastered and I didn’t want to keep it to myself.
I don’t own a dovetail jig, and never will. I however understand the appeal of the hype for “the classic look”. Many an amateur is time limited and while they sincerely desire the skills you teach, they feel trapped wanting to make a lovely gift for spouse or friend and not having the confidence to jump in and risk a disappointing outcome. (Likely Disappointing in their eyes only.) There is a level of safety in making when your only goal is developing a new skill. Add a deadline and possibly a limited supply of wood and the risk seems insurmountable. Many amateurs don’t feel the freedom of time and push our projects and learning into one and the same. I know I did and have used “lesser” construction methods than I would have liked to use because I lacked the skills.
My approach 40+ years ago was to add one new skill to each successive project. This worked well for me and when I had the time I would work on the basic skills; layout, sawing to a line, planing, chisel skills leading to mortising…. The most important skill fore me is sharpening. This is a need that I figured out early on, and then the other skills were easier to learn.
Just my thoughts on the appeal of skill substitutions like dovetail jigs, biscuit joiners, Dominoes.
And I hope, perhaps apprehensively, that my explanation in the article surmounts the postponing of gaining real skill for its substitute which usually adds around an additional £1,000 of machine (power router), router bits, dovetail guide over and above the other equipment, be that other power machines and or hand tools, that do not equal stepping out there and taking the steps despite the small risk of perhaps falling short. Also, many will testify that the said added equipment can destroy wood in less than a heartbeat and does not usually have instant success.
here here!
👍
Reading this reminds me of the work of David Pye’s The Nature and Art of Craftsmanship and The Nature and Aesthetics of Design. I think I might re-read them now, and of course get into the workshop more often.
I just woke up and this is the first thing I’ve read today, and I am very happy I did so. I’m 73 years old, a retired carpenter with a small hand tool shop in the basement. My father had six children to support, me being #2. I was his designated helper starting around seven or eight years old. He was a mill shop foreman at the local lumberyard and had a shop attached to the garage. I still shudder to remember tailing long stock off the old tilting table Delta saw he had at the time. He would shout instructions at me over the noise. Many days I worked in fear of making grave mistakes, and had a few trips to the hospital emergency room, one to save my right index finger after a mishap on the Delta bandsay. Only much later in life did I realize how patient he was and how much he taught me, especially about how to work. He put in twelve hour days everyday, including weekends, doing work for the church and various businesses and homeowners around town in central Ohio. You mention how many hours you work because you love what you do, and I can relate to that very well. I love to work and feel bad when there is nothing for me to do on the immediate horizon. Like a pack horse let out to pature, I long for the saddle of responsibility and the satisfaction from completing challenging jobs and projects, like a four piece crown molding in an 18′ circular dining room alcove in a 1903 American Federal home. The result surpised the owner when he climbled a ladder to inspect and found the multiple layers were scraped smooth and the mitered ends where the sidewalls joined were tight and clean. I loved the challenge along with many others over the years. I admire your work of course, and espeically your philosophical musings on various aspects of life as a woodworker, family man, and community member. You inspire me to no end. Wishing you and yours the most blesssed and happy holiday season and a very Merry Christmas! Michael Casari Detroit, Michigan
You sound like a level headed guy, Micheal. I share your opinion of Paul too. We should meet for a beer. I live in Westland. LOL
Enjoyed your post Michael. Like PS, you and your father provide fine examples for us to strive for 🙂
Also a useful warning of the dangers of even even the humble bandsaw (or banana as autocorrect wanted it 😀 ). Really should fix the drive belt on mine, tricky :(. Managing with just hand tools currently 🙂
About ‘the end justify the means,‘
“When one has a hammer, everything is a nail.”
Before I discovered your (very first) site, I had bought a book about the use of electric routers. It seemed as if nearly everything could be done with it. (I have used one twice).
The reality is that most of the time “the mean justify the ends”. The limitations of the machine will limit the output possibilities.
And, as pointed out by Amin Maalouf (writer and “Perpetual Secretary” of the Académie Française), unapropriate means delegitimize the end.
To me, you are similar in many ways to the farmers where I grew up. These farmers can and do make just about anything that they need with their lathes, welders, and a few hand and power tools. They grew up in the same era as you, and very much believe in personal responsibility and self-sufficience.
When something breaks, they fix it, and if you need some obscure screw or piece of hardware, chances are that they have it, or else they can make this too.
As you alluded: much of it is a lifestyle and an can-do attitude.
I started to wood working in shop class during my high school years. Two years of it. All power tools. Though I always believed I wanted to be a trades man, I am afraid of heights so I ruled out carpentry. But I never gave cabinet making or furniture building or even finishing carpentry. I didn’t know if I could make a steady living at it. I didn’t know anyone in those trades. Wished I did. I met a refrigeration technician and he showed what he did and I saw how he was living, so I chosed that trade,and done very well in it. And continue to do well. However, there’s not a lot of love here. Deep down I Wished I chose the wood working trade. Once the internet came through and showed me what I was missing, Ole well there’s always the hobby. So like most people you buy a house then the table saw,then drills,router and jigs. Then I discovered the hand tool world. And that’s where I’m at now. The challenge is learning to sharpen and cut dovetails,cutting with a hand saws ,after I make a box, it looks like a 5year old made it. But using the machines, you look like you know what your doing. For people picking up hand tools later in life, for me I don’t know if I will ever reach a level where I could say I’m a hand tool wood worker. So I enjoy it, and won’t give up because it is the experience I get going through the exercise. Good day.
Good one, keep at it always improving, eh?
I long ago stopped using power tools and never looked back or missed them. I’m in the middle of making several woodworking gifts for Christmas and last night we had a power failure. It mattered not. I lit a candle and continued in the joy of woodworking. No dust. No noise. Only peace as I hand planed, chiseled, and hand sawed dovetails. More often than not the joy is in the journey of woodworking and good results happen for the love of it!
Hi Paul,
I grew up here in the U.S. thinking that the only way you could woodwork now was with machines. I have always wanted to make furniture and finally started a project a while ago. It started with machines and then something happened . I was squaring up some mortices that I had started with the drill press and a forstner bit, with a chisel and I was not having good luck. It turns out that my chisel that I thought was sharp was no where near sharp. So after watching many YouTube videos (including many by you) I got up the nerve to learn how to sharpen my chisels myself. Once I cut with a really sharp chisel, I fell in love with hand tool wood working. I then sharpened and tuned up my great-grandfather’s Stanley Bailey no. 4-1/4, and purchased a Spear and Jackson 12 inch tenon saw and sharpened that. I still use the power tools because I am slowly building up my hand tools and learning them, but power will be used less and less as I learn more. Thank you for all of the great videos and posts!
Ahh, the sense of belonging, that which we all desire. Essentially formed by the culture, sub culture we grow up in and later immerse ourselves. That forms much of the way we perceive and think. Humanistic, generally limited, nearly always hiding a shallowness. I’ll stop with that as it’s generally enough to ruffle feathers. With 40 plus years as a home builder/ remodeling contractor, I’ve used, owned more tools for the different phases of construction than most, even other contractors, as I learned how to build from foundation to roof and everything between those 3D planes. Am I any good? My customers believe so, my take is there is always room to improve. I thoroughly love working with just hand tools for many of the same reasons Paul lays out. I’m also proficient with power tools, though they are more of a convenience than a joy.
I just started woodworking about a month ago. I’ve been using only hand tools because it seemed like fun. I’ve fallen in live with what I get to do in my limited spare time. I discovered Paul about a week in, and he’s been a true inspiration to better my skill and remain true to my tools. Many thanks, and I look forward to learning so much more from you in the future!
I enjoyed both the article and comments in this post. I am becoming a hand tool woodworker because I am attracted to the problem solving — creating a unique item on my own terms. I cherish that feeling of finishing something well to my own standards rather than seek validation elsewhere for my work. The best part is wending your way thru the making! It seems contrived if you are dependent on a store-bought jig or a readymade solution for the sake of consistency or expedience.
Last of a dying breed? I don’t think so Paul. Perhaps a trailblazer for a new generation of hand tool woodworkers.
No, you aren’t the last of a dying breed, my brothers and I do the same things.
We just don’t have any way of showing the world how we live and mostly the world doesn’t seem to care. My sons have the same attitude and can do anything that I can do, sometimes even better!
Sorry, Tom, but what I said is true. The ones and twos dotted around do not compare to the hundreds of thousands of makers when I was a young apprentice amongst others actually making a living with their hands. The machines will ultimately win and AI will ultimately take over no doubt.
Well I’ll concede you’re right to a large degree. We used to have what was called the “ Protestant Work Ethic” but I suppose that would be considered some kind of racist statement now.
But you really didn’t have to be Protestant to have such an ethic.
The world will always need innovators and people who know how to work and actually make things. While you might say hand tool woodworking I think of it as really working with your mind engaged. Not many people do this sadly but there are a few, maybe 10% of the population? When you get back to visit Texas I think you might see this kind of ethic a lot more.
Anyway I enjoy your classes and your appreciation for the world around us, I’m always learning something from you.
I believe you are correct and the sad bit is that many lack the confidence to attempt things due to their own lack of the tactile feel of doing things. I’m about a half generation behind you sir, but have had the good fortune of being born to a man who ran the industrial arts department in a high school and with an older brother about your age who was a masterful maker of things. We worked together at several auto repair facilities and would joke “We’ve done so much, for so long that we can now do anything with nothing”. The high school I attended in Redmond Washington, just a few miles from Microsoft had a brand new industrial arts department when I attended, it was fantastic! But it is now gone, in fact the entire school district for a large area is void of any such thing, replaced with computers to allow students to play computer games, I’m guessing. I don’t dislike technology, I am a software engineer by trade now, but I am so thankful for my roots. I found you when looking to find a proper way to sharpen some garden shears. Years later, my current quest is to finish restoration of about a dozen hand plane acquisitions from garage sales, again good instruction from yourself, thank you! Happiest of holidays to you and your’s!
If I made just about anything over the years whether hand or power tools, my wife would always compliment me on completed project even tough I would point out the flaws in evey project. Since moving into primarily hand tools, it has become easier to accept my flaws and accept them as learning process. But the learning and improving is as much of the process and joy in doing hand tool woodworking. After a time you can tell whether a saw needs a little rake or your edges become sharper and at a faster rate or don’t sweat that knot. The constant challenge of improving and learning are as much of the reward as the finished job. As far as the little wife goes she even seems to like things I make by hand better.
Ah, the flaws… I’m trying to move from “oh, bother – there it is” to “let’s see if it won’t just work anyway”. I critique my own work, but once the glue has dried I move on unless the flaw is too grave.
The two main things – or at least, two OF THEM – I try to learn for myself is to move from “perfect” to “good enough” and not to overbuild everything.
And the appreciation my wife and kids show over the things I make.. nothing beats that! 🙂
I too have experienced the satisfaction that comes when I realize that my plane iron is sharper than before, that my joints comes out dead tight much easier than before… It is very rewarding.
It’s a hard lesson to learn. Perfectionism runs strong in our family. Combined with exacting science in my work life, it makes for a poor companion. That was until I had a professor who pointed out “perfect is the enemy of good”. I took that onboard and it has certainly made my life less of a trial. I still have high standards but achievable ones.
Woodworking is my ‘retreat’, my therapy for the runaway pace of a demanding work life.
Most conveyor belts are beyond the capacity of an individual to keep pace hence the need for different tasks by difference abilities and tasks by different people in short bursts of concentrated input along the line. From birth to death, life is surely a conveyor belt for most individuals; think birth, medical care, eductation, travel, work, retirement, senior healthcare, crematorium, etc. Not something we want to hear but remarkably true. Pressing the emergency stop button and getting off the line and offline too these days takes great courage and risk. Surprisingly, the greatest risk usually comes from your peers and friends, spouses, partners and so on who will never really appreciate those who take a path less traveled and certainly not the one they are on. Most of my perfect work happens by accident and I stand amazed that an accident, like science, happens mostly by mistakes. I have worked eleven years past retirement age thus far and happily done so simply because of getting off the conveyor belt as much as possible and wherever practical.
Coincidentally, I’ve been viewing life as a conveyor belt recently. Probably aware that I and others are now approaching the end of I! Gulp 😀
BTW PS love your book, thanks. There is just one short section that I am struggling with: plough plane, fine tuning the irons – any chance you could go over that??
(FYI I have a wedged wooden plough with a good set of old irons that I bought separately; and a small metal Rapier plough plane – a copy of the Record 43 I think, came with 3 irons.)
I would very much appreciate knowing the title and author of the book you mention in paragraph one. Thank you.
Your reflections bring to mind Norman Maclean’s book, “A River Runs Through It.” It’s not about woodworking, it’s about flyfishing, which in turn is also about life.
The opening sentence being, “In our family there was no clear line between flyfishing and religion.”
I think you would appreciate reading it, as it touches much that your reflections do.
Well said Paul
I am all for handworking but each to their own. In the past I was fit and strong enough to plane and saw all day, these days not so much. My machines and jigs help me do what I want to achieve. It is ok being a purist but at some level we all are beholden to machines. Very few of us go into the forests to harvest wood and cut it into workable timber. We all rely on such hardware such as vises, planes and saws made by clever people elsewhere (even those who make their own planes need the hardware made elsewhere).
Never quite sure how to take comments like this, Bill. I take particular care to look at the words people use as I do indeed read every single comment via my blog that comes in and one part I might agree with here in what you said is the “each to his own.” bit. Fitness issues come along at different levels for different people and various reasons including a very wide range of disabilities; age, physical or mental abilities, disorders and such might in some cases benefit. In some cases benefit from machines will be good and useful and of course time-strapped people will dimension their wood to size and such but in probably fifty percent of cases machines will not be the answer. The important thing for me is that I condemn no one anywhere for using and relying on machines. This is their personal choice. But I hope I might appeal to those who sidestep the advantages hand work brings IF they push themselves a little harder and gain mastery in hand tool woodworking. I just made a bed headboard in a day with raised panels for an upcoming project and using only hand tools. I just loved it. On then. You used a sentence saying, “when I was fit and strong enough to saw and plane all day,”. Well, that is quite a workout even for me with a lifelong practice of using hand tools. No one does that hence my inclusion of a bandsaw in my videos. And then, “It is ok being a purist” Where is and who is the purist you speak of? My outreach is to woodworkers the world over. Here in the UK our stats show that 78% of woodworkers here do not own a machine and even if they did could never use one because of other circumstances. Go globally and that statistic will increase because poor nations will not be able to have what richer nations have at their finger tips. They might not even have regular electricity. This is where my work comes in. I hope that you do understand this is nothing at all to do with anyone being a purist. Even so, the joy of achievement is remarkable when you see what we have dome by hand over the past 12 years of making videos, and then teaching hands-on classes and so on since 1990. Okay, now then, I made it my task on occasion to get the wood I wanted that could in that day not be had from a timber merchant. I was lucky I suppose, or was I? Usually I made what happened happen. Even though my one-ton dodge truck only cost me $350 dollars, my intention of going out and harvesting mesquite was my choice and I did make it happen because, well, I wanted the challenge and the adventure of pitching myself against the elements. people do this in different ways.climb mountains, swim oceans and such. I do not ever expect others to do such a thing. I mention such things to encourage others to understand what it took for me to achieve on the lowest of low incomes and live the life I engineered for myself. For every ten thousand there might be one or two who say, ‘Wow, I am going to try that one of these days!’
Dear paul,
I’d like to make your workbench. Cost is (a bit of) an issue. We have a lot of pallets at work, which I can have. The bearer on the pallets is often a 2×4 piece of pine, about 4 feet long. If I make your laminated benchtop, would it be acceptable to end join or abutt 2 lengths of the pallet timber such that the total length is 6 feet? If I did this, is there a particular way to do the end joint so it is less likely to separate or have problems? OR is this just a bad idea and I should just buy some longer lengths of timber for the bench top? Thankyou in advance, Paul g
(Ps – I didn’t want to say anything too early, but glad to see your hands appear to have done so well, and hope you have a lovely Christmas)
I’ve done this before and it’s usually worked out fine, and a large number of wooden kitchen worktops (which I use for my own bench worktop) is just made up of blockwork. If you stagger the joins across the top, it’ll likely be fine. I’d probably advise trimming the ends, making sure they’re nice and square and clean where the but joints meet, or if you’re feeling like a challenge, you could cut an angle on the ends and scarf them for more strength and glue area. In reality though, a lot of the strength will come via the long grain to long grain lamination across the lengths of pallet wood. I’d just go for it.
Good luck,
Rico
thanks rico cheers!
I have also done this (staggered boards for the bench-top).
My workbench is made of upcycled wood.
It is rock solid.
if, when you butt two boards one against the other (before gluing), you have a gap, pass with a saw between the two ends (one or more times depending of the initial mismatch).
It will make perfect matches even if it is not square (which is not needed).
I have made the top a little longer and trimmed the two ends after gluing.
Great thanks Sylvain!
It was you Paul Sellers who instilled the passion for hand tool woodworking into the hearts of thousands. While LN and Veritas existed previously, their clientele were predominantly not dedicated hand tool enthusiasts. Roy Underhill, a revered figure, served primarily as a teacher and host at the “Woodwright School,” while Chris Schwarz, more a celebrity journalist, often advocated for magazine advertisers, particularly Lie Nielsen. Yet, it was you who pioneered the realm of exclusive hand tool woodworking.
You became the trailblazer, offering online woodworking education that rivalled expensive woodworking schools. Undoubtedly, your teaching prowess remains exceptional, and you accomplished what others hesitated to attempt. In an industry where American woodworking celebrities adhere to a rigid hierarchy, you boldly defied those boundaries, earning widespread acclaim.
Despite concerted efforts to undermine you, especially from the American woodworking elite, you stood resilient. Your zenith predated the era of the “Coronavirus,” a time when the woodworking community faced unprecedented challenges, leading many to falter without recovery. The landscape shifted, marked by surging living costs and grossly inflated timber prices. Amidst adversity, you emerged as a survivor, a champion in your own league.
I believe you are the last of the lot. Your dedication transcends personal success; you sought to make a difference at the governmental level. Regardless of the outcome, what resonates is your commitment to trying. Paul, you have undoubtedly contributed more to the craft than all your counterparts combined.
I just wanted to say thank you, Paul because you never know when it will be too late to do so.
i have to put down my power router and use my handplane