Some years ago at a Williamsburg woodworking conference, the inestimable Mack Headley stood on stage, checked the setting of his plane, addressed the workpiece and together they created the near-mystical, crisp “S-S-S-G-G-G-R-R-R-I-I-I-K-K-K” aria so familiar to experienced woodworkers. An audible baritone “Oooohhhh” swept the hall on appreciation of a finely sharpened tool in the hands of a master. It was perhaps the most identifiable moment of a tool speaking that I can recall. And to be sure, the audience of mostly middle-aged men in plaid flannel shirts was listening.
But the phenomenon of tools talking, and us listening, is much more fundamental, an almost visceral component in learning skilled craft. The relationship we have with our tools is among other things, audible and linguistic. Tools speak to us constantly, telling us how we are doing with them.
Last Friday saw the completion of an intense course for aspiring curators called “Historical Technology of Furniture Making” I taught with renowned furniture historian Oscar Fitzgerald (“Four Centuries of American Furniture”). Every day for two weeks Oscar would start us off with a brief overview lecture on a topic, I would follow with a demonstration of the relevant technique or process, and then supervise the students practicing it at the bench. It was a memorable opportunity for them to engage in multiple-sensory learning that they will retain throughout their careers. We started out with a chunk of the oak tree that became the replica Gragg Chair and ended the second week with the laying of gold leaf – with splitting, shaving, sawing, planing, joining, shaping, metal casting, steam bending, veneering and japanning in between.
As you can imagine, since most of the students had near-zero woodworking experience, frustration abounded. As it should. Skilled woodworking is not accomplished on the first try.
One of the phrases I kept repeating through the course was, ”Let the tool do its work.” A tool will tell you what it wants to do, and even more important it will tell you what it does NOT want to do. If the sound is organized and crisp, you are asking the tool to do what it is supposed to do. That’s what Mack Headley’s plane was saying to him and to us in the audience.
Conversely, in the hands of unskilled or unfamiliar practitioners a tool can moan, screech, growl and chatter. My students and interns can confirm that when we are working in the same space, I can hear faulty work from across the room even if my back is turned and my attention directed elsewhere. At first they cannot believe I can hear the tool talking, but over time they become believers, especially when someone newer and less experienced joins us. Then they recognize the mellow tones of their own work versus the often cringe-inducing caterwauling of the newcomers’.
About halfway through the second week of this course I knew we were making headway. I watched from some distance as a student was using a sharp little spokeshave on the mahogany cabriole leg we had made together as a class and she encountered the spokeshave telling her it really, really did not want to do what she was instructing it to do. Without even thinking, in a moment she changed her posture and direction of work, the sound became mellifluous and beautiful shavings spewed forth leaving a glistening, faceted surface. Alone, she sighed and smiled gently, rightfully pleased with the result. That dulcet moment and the little silent smile to herself was as great a reward any as teacher can experience. She had learned the lesson of the talking tool and incorporated it into her work without even thinking about it.
When tools speak, listen.
— Don Williams
Kevin Glen-Drake laid the foundation for an epiphany moment at the San Diego Lie-Nielson event when he said (more or less) “when the saw groans like that you aren’t cutting right.” A few weeks later, during a practice session, the lesson finally sank in. I started listening to the saw and adjusting grip/posture until it sounded sweet. My cuts are now no more accurate but much smoother. I call it Sawing by Ear
I’m OK with my tools speaking, my problem is that they keep talking back to me.
Not just hand tools — power tools too. At a noted school I attended one of the instructors was dailed into the “machine room” which was physically seperate form the “bench rooms,” He could have been too rooms away, and would stop in mid sentance and rush to the machine room. Usually in time to stop someone making a grave mistake. In my two years there the worst accident by far was from a carving gouge. Not that that is particularly on point, but considering all the machines in use at once, plus extrainious noise from wherever, it was somthing one had to see to believe. But he certainly stopped plenty of mistakes from happening.
I teach my students the same thing at the lathe. You can tell how thin a piece is, how clean the cut is, all from the sound!
Tool sound is important.
That’s why I have “Go tell the banjo” and some of your other gifts softly playing in the back ground…
After forty years of being around woodworking tools and machinery and after much negligence of hearing protection. I find I can still, the majority of the time, tell more about what’s going on with a machine or tool by sound than sight. My coworkers look at me like I’m crazy when I repeat this!!
Hand tools can talk to you. Power tools just gab.
Very nice post Don. I haven’t heard enough of your voice since WIA. Your talk at The Roubo Society dinner was excellent and a highlight for me.
I hear my tools talking often. Their unpleasantries are usually due to the steep learning curve I find myself on. But I have been lucky and heard that sweet kiss now and then. Much like a straight on putt or a well hit baseball. You know it when you hear it.
Lately though, the natives in my garage shop have been speaking a new language to me. Wanting more attention they have been urging me to leave behind my current life full of stress and unhappiness. Eric Sloane writes about how a strong wedge is formed when a square peg is pounded into a round hole. True I am sure, but it can be murder on that square peg. So, the tools urge (in a New England accent as many hail from Maine) “Come play with us more”. “Stay here where you are happy, where you create, and find that spiritual pay Jameel Abramham alludes to”.
I usually just dismiss such thoughts as an excessive build up of Hide fumes, but lately the intonations have grown, alarmingly so.
“Why should I feel intrusion?
Why be afraid of what we do not understand?
To eliminate exclusion.
Cut out the differences, you feel like you belong.
And the drum beats louder …”
For several years my contemplative musings have been in part occupied with the notion of personal whole-ness. I am definitely not a touchy feely myrmidon (although I am told I am a right wing hippie, meaning I think that I am laid back but heavily armed — one co-worker calls me a zen Baptist) but I do believe that the greater every aspect of my life is integrated into every other, the better. My world view effects my observations, my sense of right and wrong governs my fealty/devotion to those I love, my temperament influences my expressions of faith, my appreciation for excellence in all good things guides my pursuit of skills, my curiosity makes all of Creation unfold before me as a seamless whole…
Hey Don,
From an unarmed left-wing hippie and zen anabaptist I have to say that I really resonate with your philosophy of personal whole-ness. This is why I love woodworking with hand tools (and sailing). It affords me the opportunity to work with nature and to strive towards excellence using the little talent that I have been blessed with. Though I must admit along with others here that my tools spend more time crying in agony than they do in singing but the joy is in the learning and growing.
My tools keep telling me to get of my lazy *ss and use them more.
Wow. Nobody has asked where to take that class. I’d no doubt learn a lot in the hands-on portion, but I’d love the get the accompanying history lesson.
Where does this happen?
The class is offered through the History of Decorative Arts MA program co sponsored by the George Mason University.. I think the class listings can be found in the Art History Department of GMU.
Every time I was cutting a piece of wood with a handsaw, my old man used to use that line, “let the tool do the work”.
When my old man told me that line, I’d often answer, “if the tool could do the work, it wouldn’t need me to push it up and down”. If screwing up the cut didn’t get me a cuff, that line always did.
I understand the concept behind the statement, but having lived with that line for years, I can honestly tell you that when it comes to instructional benefit…it sucks.
Fortunately, I did not utter, “Let the tool do the work.” That is indeed nonsensical glibness. What I said was “Let the tool do its work”. Without our skilled motive power a tool is merely sculpture.
At around 2:40 Allan Breed makes the same point. When I saw this today, it made me think of how often we seem to run into coincidences like this.
http://www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/video/exhibitions/curatorial-departments/aw/duncan-phyfe-bedpost-carving
I have been watching a series of videos on YouTube that Curtis Buchanan filmed to show the creation of a windsor chair starting with the log and ended with a finished chair. Everytime he is using his draw knife he instructs the viewer to listen for the difference in a splitting sound and a slicing sound. When he no longer hears the splitting sound he knows that he is following the wood fibers exactly. You can sense that you could put him in a dark room and he could still produce perfect chair parts just by listening to the tool on the wood. I hope I can be that in tune with my tools at some point.
Making the same point, someone once told me: “Wood will never lie to you,… and it will never lie for you either.” So true.
When I don’t draw or paint or play music for to long I start to feel bad, like something is missing. It’s the same with wood and I don’t even mean any project in particular…just cutting. It’s a discipline, a practice but also a meditation. I had no instruction when I first picked up a piece of wood and decided I wanted to change it’s shape using a saw. It took me a long time to understand what a saw was and what it did and how it worked. When the answer came to me…
It was whisper.
Are you telling me I should grade my hand-tool class with a decibel reader?
I wouldn’t know how to grade anything.I explore my own ignorance. for me learning how to cut was a slow process and once I began to grasp it I realized the skill to cut well was a subtle intuition. I wanted some very direct advise, and looking back I could put some of the things I struggle with into words and paint a picture of it but that would not tell the story or sum up the skill. I can only describe it to myself in vague poetic terms. when I do my best work I’m calm and my work space is actually quieter. When my saw is doing what it wants to be doing it sounds more like shaving than cutting…quiet. and it’s not as though a loud voice announced, YEA! it’s working! I didn’t even notice it at first. there was times I wanted to give up. I’m still not exactly sure what happened. Is this crazy talk?
Do you have to study a language degree before using Japanese saws? How do Americans cope with the Yorkshire accent when Sheffield-made tools speak to them?