I wish I were a better sawyer. Sometimes I wish I could pull off a nice French polish. But mostly, I wish I could stick to the script.
When I teach people how to make a chair, tool chest, workbench or anything, really, I find myself presenting it as a series of ritualistic steps. I do this, I suppose, because it’s how I approach many small tasks in the workshop.
If I follow every step to the letter, I end up with a beautiful furniture component. If I don’t, then it’s “Klaatu! Barada!… mumble mumble.” And the next thing you know the Army of the Dead shows up, and the project is hacked to pieces.
Sam Rami references aside, I am a strict ritualist when it comes to small tasks in the workshop. To me, they are not constricting. They are like singing old hymns in church. Everything you need for a transcendental experience is right there on the page. Just follow the notes.
When I glue up a chair, I have a ritual. Every part has been numbered in the same way since I built my first chair 17 years ago. Every leg points to its mortise. Every tool is laid out the same way since back when I barely had a beard.
When I assemble a dovetailed case, I have even more complex rituals for marking, clamping and checking for square.
(Side note: These rituals aren’t static. They are improved upon little by little until I get the same results every time. And I’m always open to altering them if I can find [and then test] a better way.)
These rituals didn’t come from a book. Or from a teacher. Instead, they came from grief after a failed operation. So I sat down and figured out what steps would prevent that failure from ever happening again. They are my own private religion.
And they sometimes put me in my own private hell. Today I was laminating some wide boards of Southern yellow pine face to face. I have a ritual for that, which I first created when I built my $175 Workbench in 2001.
There are many parts to this ritual (stand up, sit down, kiss yourself). But the most important parts are:
- Clamp. Check both sides of the joint for gaps. Walk away for 5 minutes. Retighten the clamps all to the same pressure.
- Let the assembly sit in the clamps for a minimum of five hours. Overnight is better.
Today as I removed the assembly from the clamps, I realized I had forgotten an important part of the ritual – checking both sides of the joint for gaps. I turned the component over, and it was a mess. I asked myself: Can I live with this?
And that triggered another ritual: “If I ask myself a question, then I already know the answer.”
I set the crap part aside to be salvaged in some way. And I went down to the basement to get more yellow pine.
— Christopher Schwarz
I think you are in good stead.
I have a dear friend who is a heart surgeon.
He once told me that open heart surgery is “simply” a series of small, rather uncomplicated surgeries all strung together. He also reviewed each case to see what went well, could have been done better and how to employ improvements on future patients.
If it works for heart surgery, it should be good enough for wood craftsmanship.
There is a surgeon who wrote a book called “The Checklist Manifesto” about how medical groups that had instituted checklists for various hospital processes decreased bad outcomes by a third. He claims that checklists can improve quality in all sorts of things. It might also make some things less fun though…
A good checklist certainly makes flying less exciting.
In a good way.
We always called that Eastern Shore Mahogany.
Stuff of life.
I have heard you say that many times that “If I ask myself the question, then I already know the answer” and to the grief of my wife or friends they always say no one will ever know or see it. But I replace or redo it anyway and I am always happy in the end that I did just that.
Absolutely correct. What I make is for the customer. How I make it is for me.
I have a pile of crap dovetails sitting on my bench right now.
Tomorrow I start over….very painful process.
A very long time ago you put into words that “If I ask myself a question, then I already know the answer.” It was something that I previously only allowed myself to be peripherally aware of. But its saved me a bunch of time and angst since. Better to redo something early in the process than to fool myself into thinking its ok and waste mire time and materials.
“Mire time”? Actually, quite accurate!
Many years ago I caught a PBS show on making samurai swoards. The Japanese makers followed a very ritualized process. The rational they said in the documentary was since quality control and scientific measuring really didn’t exist,Mathis ritualized process was a way to ensure and build,in quality. I’ve never forgotten that point.
Not related but in same show, they pointed out that after getting the iron our of their “kiln” they could separate the hard and soft steel by the sound it made when struck. Example was shown in the series. Cool.
It’s a good thing to have a mantra in these situation. Lucky you had more lumber at hand, I don’t know how it is in Kentucky, but here going out to buy anything has become much more time consuming than before.
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. It’s the best way to learn & improve.