For 15 years I shared my sharpening stones with my students. Now, my stones hide beneath my bench. Why?
Students tried to turn my sharpening stones into tacos.
Sharpeners who are beginners (or indifferent) tend to work only the middle of a sharpening stone. This activity quickly turns a flat stone into a soup bowl. After a few sharpenings, the stone becomes 100 percent unreliable. And when you go to flatten this stone, you are in for a workout.
So I made a video.
If you have been sharpening for many years you will roll your eyes when you watch this. Don’t. I know you did this, too. If you are a beginning sharpener, watch it with care. It’s only 14 seconds long, but it shows something important. You need to spread out the wear on your sharpening stones with every stroke.
Sharpening stones, especially waterstones, dish quickly. A few ill-placed strokes will set you on a path to wondering what the heck is going on with your edges.
Flat sharpening stones are reliable. Yes, you can deal with a wonky stone if you are experienced. But I always prefer dead flat stones to dead anything-else stones.
So spread out the wear with every stroke. And flatten your stones after every sharpening.
Or don’t. Just don’t use my stones. They are still in hiding. Poor stones.
My daughter Madeline has an etsy page set up for the latest set of stickers. You can place your order here – the stickers are $6 for a set, and the price includes domestic shipping. (Overseas orders are $10 per set, which includes shipping.)
I’m afraid she isn’t able to do the “send $5 and an SASE punk rock thing” because of her work schedule and that she doesn’t live near a post office where she can rent a P.O. box.
As always, these are nice U.S.-made stickers – 100 percent vinyl. And they can be used outdoors, too. If you want a set, I’d act quickly. She ordered 300 sets and is down to 214 by word of mouth only.
My daughter Madeline has settled into her new animal research job on the East coast and told me she is still interested in distributing stickers. I’ve created three new designs for her, and they should be available through her etsy store within a week.
These designs took some digging and some thought. If you don’t like them – or the ideas they embody – that’s cool. But please channel your criticism somewhere else during the holiday season. I just want to to think of hedgehogs and sparkle ponies this month.
Join the R. Michael Burns Troop of Woodworkers for Peace
Burns was one of the founding instructors of the College of the Redwoods (now the Krenov School) with James Krenov. This sticker is based on a flyer and has a nice story behind it. Brendan Gaffney is going to write that story up for us shortly.
Never Despair; Nothing Without Labour
This sticker is taken from a 1905 billhead of Bittner, Hunsicker & Co. The Allentown, Pa., company made hoisery, knit goods and overalls. Thanks to the power of ebay.com, I found two original billheads for sale and purchased them. It’s a delightful and detailed illustration. Plus, I love bees.
Lost Art Press Bandito
This sticker features original art from Indianapolis artist Shelby Kelley. John and I have been fans of Kelley’s work for many years. It’s also available on a T-shirt.
Full details on how to order the stickers through Madeline’s etsy.com store are coming soon. And thanks to everyone who has bought stickers from her – this is the seventh(!) set. Your support helped put her through college with zero debt. As a result, she is now eyeing a doctorate program. But she is insisting on getting a doctorate without any loans.
I am continually impressed with her attitude and drive. And you played a part, too.
Note: Oh dang, I promised myself I wouldn’t use any puns. Also, you’ll notice the comments are disabled for this post. This is not because I am averse to criticism (feel free to visit Sawmill Creek, where trashing me is a sanctioned sport with letter jackets and a leaderboard). Instead, I simply ask you to think about this for yourself, without the noise of comments. Decide for yourself if I’m full of crap.
My first blog entry (ever) on David Pye was purposely left half-finished, with no real conclusion. My hope was that readers would take the next steps themselves. Some did, some didn’t.
So to conclude, I think the amount of risk between things Pye describes as “risk” and those that are “certain” is so small in reality that they are useless distinctions. In general, making things involves risk. We try to control it at the workbench and on the factory floor. But ultimately – and this is important to me – hand processes and machine processes are ruled by the same narrow factors.
“Will I screw up this part with this operation?”
“What can I do to prevent that from happening?”
I ask myself these same questions at the router table and with a chisel in my hand. The answers are always the same:
“Keep your wits about you. Know your materials. Don’t rush. Pay attention to feedback.”
I find no significant continuum of risk that offers any help in understanding my work. Instead, where I do find meaning is in thinking about the difference between tacit and explicit knowledge – but I have no desire to open that can of worms on this blog today (or likely ever).
So why am I writing this? To dissuade you from using the expression the “workmanship of risk” when describing your work. Though Pye would be horrified by the following fact, it is an expression that (unintentionally) belittles the work of some and props up the work of others.
When I was the editor of Popular Woodworking, it had about 220,000 readers at the peak of its circulation. Our surveys indicated that about 99.8 percent of them owned machines. As someone who wrote about hand tools, I became quickly sensitized to phrases and language that would come off as elitist – or at the very least evangelical.
I know this because I made these mistakes myself. A lot. I heard from the readers. And I learned.
Quick example: When you say you love hand tools because they are quiet and allow contemplation – and you don’t have to hear the roar of machines and wear safety equipment – you are:
Wrong. Real handwork is fricking loud and dangerous.
Disparaging the things that bring joy to many machine woodworkers.
Confession: I love putting on my earmuffs and cranking up my 12” jointer. I enjoy the hum it makes as it spins up to speed, and the tactile feedback I receive from its cutting action.
So the “workmanship of risk” and “workmanship of certainty” distinction sounds – to a machine woodworker and to me – like “hand tools require skill; machine tools require you to push a button.”
Put another way, “risk” sounds cool and daring. “Certainty” sounds like owning a condo in suburban Wichita (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
I feel certain that most hand tool woodworkers aren’t elitist. But the language thing – it’s tricky.
And that’s why I’m not going to write about this aspect of our craft anymore. It’s back to animal idioms and thinly veiled poo jokes from here on out.
At the beginning of every class I teach, I try to remember to make a little speech. It goes something like this:
You are welcome to take photos or videos of everything you learn here. And you can post these wherever you like. You can write in detail about the techniques you learn here and share them with others – I don’t even care if you credit me.
In fact, nothing would please me more than if you went home and ran this same class with some friends. You are welcome to use the plans and class materials I provided. This belongs to you now. In fact, this belongs to everyone.
Surprisingly, some people take me up on it. And today I received an email from one of my students, Klaus Skrudland of Norway (follow him on Instagram here). I’ll let Klaus tell the story.
I hope you and your family are doing well. I reckon you’re well into Lutefish preparations for Christmas! I’m home from work today with my youngest son who has a fever and a running nose, as well as a stitched cut in is forehead, which he got from being pushed down the stairs by his older sister. In other words, all is normal.
Anyway, yesterday was the last day of my Staked High Stool class. We’ve spent the last four Mondays, from 6 to 9 PM. I taught five people who had never before made a chair or a stool or anything besides flat work, and they all completed each their beautiful staked stool.
When I came back from Munich I managed to decipher my own scribblings and arranged them into a four page handwritten pamphlet with some sketches and measurements. I could’ve just handed them your text from the ADB expansion, but I wanted to add a personal touch to it. I was a bit nervous, but I figured it was good for me to teach the course as soon as possible to be sure that I remembered it all.
It all went pretty smooth. Each night, for good luck and spirit, we put up a vintage photo of Samantha Fox the wall over the benches. I’m sure that helped a lot. We ran into some issues here and there (a split leg, some wedges that broke even before entering the kerf, as well as some weird and unexpected leg angles), but we solved them together and the stools all came together just fine.
Perhaps the most rewarding outcome of this was that none of my friends had ever considered making a stool like this, and they LOVED it. It was really a bit moving for me to see how they engaged in this and how satisfied they were when they had a finished stool that they could actually sit on! I remember the feeling my self from your class earlier this year. It was kinda magic. It’s also very cool to see how newly acquired skills quickly manifest in people’s hands and eyes when they get to assist each other and explain the concepts to each other during the workshops. Myself included.
It’s Tuesday morning here. And thanks to Klaus and his email, I feel I can take off work for the rest of the week (I won’t – too many dovetails to chop). This stuff brings me more joy than a plate of grits and barbecue. So thanks to everyone who supports our work by buying furniture, books and taking classes. And an even greater thanks to those who pass the information on.
