Challenges
It’s a strange phenomenon that I cannot always place. Jealousy and envy can be two close bed partners, of course they can, but then there is expert knowledge, insider knowledge and a range of levels between just disliking someone and all the way up to hatefulness. Challenging the status quo of any majority and suddenly democracy is thrown out the window. People believe in the democratic vote, which simply means that the majority rule always and in all ways over the minority to indeed force that will on those who simply cannot agree. I take the saying with consideration when Benjamin Franklin said, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.” . . . and we all know where that went. On the continent that used this analogous statement against a governing colonial empire, it was the minor entity of that day endeavouring to establish its new quest to rule itself under its own sovereignty. That, you would think, would make it more sensitive to the power of majority rule not to just discount every minority that comes along to counter the existing big country to see if a minority might still have excellent input as a small rudder to steer the great hulking mass of a sea-going Titanic.
My advocacy for skilling-up people wanting to use more and more handwork for many better reasons than those countering me with snipe and snide has come at my own expense over many decades and at a considerable cost to me in both time and money. In the late 1980s, doing my first shows in the USA, woodworkers saw my basic wooden workbench and ten hand tools and chuckled to one another in the aisles of progressive woodworking. With their arms laden with the latest and greatest gizmos the big boys were offering from the surrounding booths selling machine-only woodworking, they waited for me to make a fool of myself. But then they heard the sound of a Gent’s saw slicing into four opposing dovetailed angles, and they stopped without moving from the spot they were on. In unbelief, my saw slipped in and out of each kerf to make a dovetail in under two minutes. My demonstration went on to cover many topics, from making a mortise and tenon to an inlaid picture frame. They didn’t move an inch for forty-five minutes and complained if anyone got in their way. Many of them came back on the hour every hour several times throughout the day to see what to them before that time was quite unbelievable. I moulded the wood for the picture frame with a two-hundred-year-old moulding plane and then made the mitres purely by eye and joined them at a dead-on forty-five, replete with splines. They were stunned. Part way through I would sharpen my plane and chisels, four or five of them, and have all of them surgically sharp before they could say ‘Boo’. To say my demonstrations were a showstopper would be to undervalue what they were seeing with their own eyes. That is how I started out in the pre-internet days. I was very much the minority, and I still am. And here is what happened too! After a few shows, at that time, the circuit starting in January and ending in April, the machine sellers selling all the machines and gadgetry that went with them asked the show organisers to stop me from coming to their shows. What they did not know was that the show organisers paid for my flights to and from the UK and also internal travel with hire cars and hotels because, in the end, we were bringing a new audience to their shows.
So, where am I going with this. My last blog post was to encourage new woodworkers to discover the reality that skill does not take sixty years to become competent, and these skills could indeed be had by all. It wasn’t to condemn any other world of woodworking, but to actually expand it and include machinists if that is what they wanted. I like that people challenge what I say, but the truth of what I said was from the reality of a lived life…mine! It was the one comment that said the most after advocating the method of machining edges to cut with that he used. I’d already said in the blog post that if anyone preferred to use machines to achieve their results, I was fine with that. But his closing line said it. “We’ve moved on.” He was advocating that new woodworkers spend upwards of £1,500 on a particular grinding machine and special grinding wheels. What he said in his three words would be the equivalent of saying, “Luddite.” in all caps! And of course, now we look back to see the tip of the iceberg industrialism and the great revolution has wrought at the expense of all areas of life. My method of sharpening relies on industrial processes to give me the ability to sharpen my cutting edges, but the plates I use and the compound of abrasive to polish out the edges are extremely serviceable and long-lasting. But the best thing for me now is that for about £30 I can sharpen all of my edge tools surgically sharp. And I can do it in under a minute apiece and be comfortable in the process that seamlessly gets me back to the task of woodworking. And even more than that, this £30 investment will go for the next ten years of daily woodworking, so that’s .0082 of a penny a day. Unbeatable!
Another area of concern came when I made my panels for my project using some different thicknesses of birch plywood. It wasn’t a big thing, but some thought that this was the beginning of the downward spiral. Of course, it wasn’t. It was a brilliant move that I will indeed use again and will be using in the future too. For one, I really did like the look of it. The simple, clean lines. The inherent strength and solidity of plywood, it’s well-deserved and proven longevity and much more. What I strove to establish here was that it is okay, with careful thought and consideration, to use plywood to save time and material that might otherwise make a project prohibitive because of time and cost. Three-quarter inch birch plywood comes in at around £3-4 per square foot, which generally is much cheaper than solid hardwood but with near zero waste. The savings in time is exponential, too. I simply devised a way to use it using hand tools to go along with a framework of solid oak or any other wood. That’s yet another great success for me.
I’m not much of a challenge to the commercial realms of woodworking. That was never my intention anyway, and you can tell that by my never having ever advocating that people stop using them. And even though many people say “Paul hates machines!” which, of course, is not true at all. It’s funny, though, if you simply don’t use this or that that the rest of the world does use, you suddenly become some kind of enemy. I have reached the audience I wanted to reach and teach, though. That’s because I have simply proven that machines are not as essential as the advocates selling and using them say they are. Those that abandoned their machines for hand tools had already bought into the machining systems, so those sales are now done-deals. This all said, there is absolutely no doubt that those using only machines and only ever having used hand tools do not own hand tool skills. In the evolutionary process, perhaps their processing of wood will simply become a thought process.
Regardless of the speed of production or simplicity that machine tool advocates claim, quite simply the slow, quiet hand tool processes I use suit me fine.
The process is getting quicker and easier work every piece made and I feel do much better on every level.
If I had the space, workload and budget for a small bandsaw I would buy one for some tasks but mostly it’s okay.
I am an amateur with a very small workshop and, being retired, lots of time. I am making 2 or 3 days a week so handtools are perfect. Thanks to Paul and others my techniques improve and furniture becomes more ambitious – starting from a low level. Currently making kindling as I try to produce some reasonable compound dovetails.
My one machine is an 18″ bandsaw which is a great asset.
I have a love/hate relationship with technology. I say that as the small college where I work is facing expenditures of over $800,000 because we must upgrade because Silicon Valley had made “advances” to our technology. Of course, what we had was working fine. Umm…sounds a little suspicious to me. (Did you hear the irony?) Having said that, I do not want to go back to ledgers and spreadsheets. However, there is a cost. Brain studies have shown that those students who take notes with pencil and paper not only retain the material better but gain a deeper understanding than those who take notes using the iPad. This is because the physical use of a pencil and its corresponding slowness creates a connection of which the computer is incapable.
Of course, this translates over to woodworking with hand tools. There are many reasons I primarily use hand tools but the physical connection with my hands, the tools and the material is foremost. Although my skills fall short of someone, say like Paul, with 60 years of experience, the satisfaction of successfully using tools that have been around for thousands of years is far superior to that of cranking up my bandsaw. (And I love and appreciate my bandsaw, for sure.) The same even applies to this blog. As much as I appreciate being able to instantly post a comment to Paul’s thoughts from far across the pond and half a continent away in Texas, it pales to the face-to-face meeting I experienced at the Homestead Heritage workshop many years ago. Thanks again for another thoughtful post.
Paul,
Since I wrote some notes on the plywood thread, I’m curious to whether the “downward spiral” remark above refers to anything I said.
Thanks
No, Woody. I think you had some points of view that were healthy. And I understand why people feel reluctant to use what’s referred to as ‘Fancy’ plywood, which is the super thin face veneer reflecting a particular wood to match other solid woods as a version used usually to line walls or face doors with push plates and kick plates in offices.
Good to know. Thanks, Paul.
Colin, I bought a used 12″ bandsaw and, after I fixed (& later replaced*) the old blade guide and replaced the bad old blade, it worked OK until the drive belt broke! (I bought 3 spare belts 🙂 but I can’t figure out how to fit a new one without removing and breaking the bottom wheel 🙁 ).
Honestly, for me, the bandsaw has been more trouble than it has helped. Thank heaven for hand tools! 🙂
[BTW But I find it reassuring to have fallback options: my handsaws & backsaws, my (so far unused) 28″ 3.5TPI rip-saw, my various axes, my lovely metal cross-cut bow-saws [from 12″-3’+: I bought the useful small one new, one big one was father’s (excellent 🙂 ), and 3 others were carboot finds/rescues!], some old, “universal” fleam-toothed, hard point saws 🙁 (sorry) and my currently little used chainsaw (now battery powered 🙂 ), are reasuring back ups for when big cuts are required!! 😉 ]
* I repaired the upper bandsaw blade-guide crudely with a piece of wood replacing a missing roller-bearing guide (for a year or 2). In hindsight, my fix actually worked a little better than the new upper guide that replaced it! 😀 ( Consequently, I now think roller-bearing bandsaw guides are a gimmick and I would prefer the simpler more robust and long-lasting old metal or composite guides!). 😀
Correction: I have 4 not 3 carboot sale metal “Bushman”-style bowsaws (mainly for sawing firewood) in addition to my 2 original family bowsaws! No wonder my wife keeps telling me to get rid of some saws! But when I looked through them the oldest most used looking saws were the best ones!! Old Disstons (American & Canadian), Elsworth, S&J, etc.
And I am still trying to figure out which bow-saws work best (having lost my favourite 12″ bow-saw and I am cutting more firewood by hand now 🙂 – greener, cheaper and “free exercise”. :D. I also made my own sawhorse from greenwood 🙂
(I have too many axes too, really, but I enjoy them and will only let them go to deserving homes :D).
…and my splitting maul (new but cheap and cheerful, bought & made in the USA), my froes (bought new but hand made 🙂 and with homemade edge guards), homemade club-mallets, homemade gluts, sledge & lump hammers ( most with homemade ash handles 🙂 ), and wedges, mainly old, very heavily used English ones but one little used English and one little used Swedish one. 🙂
As has often been said: “to each, his own” is where I sit. I use both and enjoy the results of both methods, hand versus machine. My small shop has all of the power tools that were pushed by Norm during his videos in the New Yankee Workshop. My shop also has several hand planes, chisels, dovetail and hand saws for the times when I just want peace and quiet when woodworking. Most of these were acquired because of watching Paul’s videos. Paul’s methods connect us with the past and so offer us choice. It’s your choice, so go make something!
There’s an art and a harmonic to watching a craftsman who’s taken the time to practice and master there skills use those skills. There is art in competency.
It’s the same reason why I measure mastery against my grandfather handcrafting Dory’s (small fishing boats) in the shed over the winter with hand tools and steambending. It’s probably gonna take me year’s and it’ll be worth it and satisfying.
Thanks Paul. Do you find you need to sharpen your tools more often when you’re working with plywood? And do you put any different angle or use any different technique when hand-working plywood?
Only a shallower set on the depth of cut.
The problem is that people are mentally lazy. When you see something that breaks with your model of how the world works you have two choices. You can expend the time and energy to expand your mental model or you can look for a quick and easy way to dismiss the new information or experience. New knowledge or experience can cause cognitive dissonance. . . None of us have unlimited time and energy so we all have to accept boundaries to our mental models but too often we choose to ignore, dismiss, or despise that which challenges us learn, grow or adapt.
I started woodworking about 7 years ago. I tell people starting out in woodworking to watch Paul’s videos and learn how to do Dovetails with a chisel, and learn how to sharpen the chisel. Sooner or later you will need the chisel to refine or fix things (hand or machine crafting) and you learn a lot about wood in the process. Once you purchase a hand plain, you will appreciate what you learned.
Rick, WoodRicks
Re. “Jealousy and envy “, etc. As I often remind my wife (and myself):
*we need more friends not enemies ;).*
Words to live by?
Just a note that here in the US we have a constitutional republic!
As Benjamin Franklin also said when asked what type of government he and the founding fathers had created, “A Constitutional Republic! If you can keep it!”
The founding fathers, being learned men, were against having a pure democracy type of government. This is where our three branches of our republican form of government come into play! They serve as a check and balance on each other!
Unfortunately, there are those who are working behind the scenes, with the global elites, to disrupt the system. Using the phrase: “This is what democracy looks like!” As they tear down our institutions and statues of our history and insert gobbledygook words for what and who they are, then threaten others when they don’t get onboard with their view of how they think the world should be!
They want to usher in a one world government of bureaucrats who do not answer to the people and install the laws and policies that they think best for us! (Research: illegal immigration, farming/meat production, electric vehicles, oil/coal/green agenda, 15 minute cities, etc.!).
But back to woodworking!
Paul has a wealth of experience and is correct that there are people of all stripes who have closed minds when it comes to tools and processes to make things out of wood, and it’s sad!
I thought working with your hands and making things was supposed to lead to better mental health and clarity! Another myth dispelled!
Making things out of whatever materials are at hand is good! Whether it’s hardwoods, or pine, or plywood!
I’m sure there were wood working snobs back in the day who said, “veneered furniture!!!” That’s absolutely Luddite!!!!
People should keep their minds open and be flexible! Research many sources, travel, read, think, and do!
Get a saw, a chisel, a handplane, a sharpening stone and work with wood, whatever type and kind you have available! Even pallet wood! Make things! Simple things! Make a board flat and square! Chop a square hole in the board! Make a tenon as best you can to fit it! Plane a square edge! But do something! Do it until you look at it and can say it’s as good as I can do it! Then learn and do more!
I’m sorry to ramble on, but woodworking and freedom are two of the many things I am passionate about!