Category: Honest Labour

Kara Gebhart-Uhl, Christopher Schwarz and I have selected a few of our favorites from “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years” – some have already been posted; there are some still to come. Chris wrote about the project that “these columns during the Hayward years are like nothing we’ve ever read in a woodworking magazine. They are filled with poetry, historical characters and observations on nature. And yet they all speak to our work at the bench, providing us a place and a reason to exist in modern society.”

Our hope is that the columns – selected by Kara from among Hayward’s 30 years of “Chips from the Chisel” editor’s notes – will not only entertain you with the storied editor’s deep insight and stellar writing, but make you think about woodworking, your own shop practices and why we are driven to make. When Australian toolmaker Chris Vesper (vespertools.com) read “A Kind of Order” it prompted him to write a few responses – read the first, “Everything in its Place,” here; another is below.

— Fitz

Time Saved is Time Gained

One thing I’ve observed from many years of visiting all types of workshops all over the world: Everyone does it a bit different. There is no right or wrong; it’s what works for you with as little judgement as one can muster. But I have found that certain things can increase shop efficiency and personal enjoyment quite remarkably. Like stepping back once a year for a really good clean up and a think outside the box to re-organise things.  Buying or making new storage for your tools (not some latest plastic storage gadget that promises to upend your life with happiness, but genuinely practical ideas like robust drawers, shelving, cupboards, racks etc.). Maybe move the workbench or a couple of machines to suit you better. Chances are if you’ve been thinking for 12 months that you really should move that material rack but haven’t, you probably should have moved it  18 months ago.

One extreme of a workspace is a floor you could eat off during work hours and barely a tool out of place – because everything has a place, and all is organised just so. The other  is what appears as mess and utter chaos to the casual observer (hopefully not on the level of compulsive hoarding – that’s not healthy for anyone). But the keeper of said chaos will likely know exactly where everything is, able to reach into the darkness of a dusty corner shelf or bottom drawer and procure quickly any requested item, no matter how obscure. Many people who operate at both extremes (and everything in between) are perfectly capable of producing beautiful work in a reasonable time frame. Some work in an eternal mess; some simply cannot do this. The manners of the brain are an interesting thing.

I prefer the cleaner and more organised end of the shop spectrum – especially working as a one-man business in a very poly-technic workshop (woodworking and metal working, along with a few other tricks like laser marking in house, metrology and some hobby welding, restoring an antique machine). Forget pride or satisfaction – I genuinely find much efficiency is gained from knowing EXACTLY where a certain tool or device is, and being able to lay hands on it immediately – no rummaging through the sedimentary geological layering that sometimes happens.

I ponder my early struggle to separate the precision metal working stuff from the ravages of woodworking dust. Apart from the obvious of using better extraction than in my early toolmaking days, I’ve now overcome this problem completely by simply putting things away and keeping the things that are not like the other separated. This is relevant no matter your shop size. Small shops need to keep ahead on organising lest conditions degrade to the point where one could have difficulty getting in the door due to the goat track having suffered an overnight avalanche (not to mention fire risks and other more serious safety matters). In larger shops it’s also critical as one does not want to waste time walking to the other side of a shop only to realise the item required is somewhere else.

One method I’ve found to be immensely convenient is to have many smallish rubbish bins (trash cans, y’all) placed strategically and unobtrusively around the workshop, sometimes grouped around a specific work area. Nothing fancy. Old paint buckets or similar receptacles mean I am never more than one step – or at best an easy lob – away from a bin. I’ve found it best to have several per area, including one at either end of my benches. So with two benches in my work area and a table in between them, that means I have four bins there alone to cover two benches. Works a treat.

It saves so much time and eliminates double handling when cleaning up your own mess, even in a small workshop.

This ethos was hatched one day whilst I was absorbed in a job and needed to chuck something in the bin. I had to walk several steps to chuck it, walk back and make a second trip (and I likely dropped something along the way).

Think on how many steps you walk to throw out a rag, or the packaging of something you just opened. Consider if you can turf it with little care or precision into a bucket probably less than one meter (about one yard, y’all) away from your body, then not give it a thought until you empty all the smaller bins into your main bin (which I do perhaps once a month). Sure that part takes a little time, but is a small investment in your own time compared to what you’ve already gained.

 

Editor’s note: This 1949 column from “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years” sums up two opinions about woodworking that don’t get much discussion. The first is one that I talk about all the time with woodworkers over a beer: We have a supply-side problem. One of the reasons that people don’t buy nice, handmade furniture is because there isn’t a lot of it around. Or, as Hayward puts it:

“Any revival must ultimately depend upon the work of the individual, and the more men there are turning out furniture of good quality and design, the more people are going to be influenced in the right direction. It must be remembered that although, as a nation, we have lost immeasurably, as individuals we have gained.”

A close examination of our beer culture is analogous. People had to taste the difference between a $4 beer and a $1 beer to understand why someone sane would charge $4 for a beer (this is in the 1990s). Dedicated brewers made beer even if the money wasn’t there. And lots went out of business in the 1990s. But eventually….

The second point Hayward makes in this column is that we are all too soon to rush to complete a piece of work. When doing our best work, the last 5 percent takes almost as much effort as the first 95 percent. But that is what differentiates good work from excellent work. I cannot always push myself to the limit. I have to eat. But when I can afford to do it, I always sleep with a smile on my face.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Will and the Deed

It looks as though to-day we are at the beginning of a new era. Values are shifting and changing, in many ways coming nearer to an ancient order of things than once we would have thought possible. Work in farm and field has become once more of prime importance, so has the skill of the technician, the man with the trained hands. We are being compelled to live more realistically, to see money as of less importance than things, a token of barter of little worth unless there are the goods available for barter. We may feel indeed that the time is ripe for the revival of craftsmanship, for the craftsman can only be truly valued when things are truly valued, and when productive, creative work is put first in the scheme of things.

***

We may feel that much of our old tradition of craftsmanship has been lost, that fine tradition which has been described as “the fearless, faithful, inherited energies that worked on and down from death to death, generation after generation.” As a nation we flung it recklessly away, too pleased with our new prosperity to realise that we had flung away the baby with the bathwater and that it had been a very lusty child. Nowadays we can realise something of what we have lost, shocked into realisation by the prevalence of low standards of workmanship against which a robust, inherited tradition is the best kind of safeguard.

***

Nevertheless, signs of revival are all about us. The need for good quality and design is entering more consciously into industry, and every effort is being made to interest the public in it. The public, that is to say, the purchaser, is in the last resort the judge, and as the general level of taste rises so will the quality of the goods that are offered to meet it. The woodworker, whether he be a home craftsman or professional cabinetmaker, can be an influence all for the good. Any revival must ultimately depend upon the work of the individual, and the more men there are turning out furniture of good quality and design, the more people are going to be influenced in the right direction. It must be remembered that although, as a nation, we have lost immeasurably, as individuals we have gained. The potential craftsman of to-day may indeed be out of touch with his traditional inheritance, but he has hopes and opportunities which his forbears never knew. Lose touch with it altogether he cannot because the instinct for creation is in every man’s blood. And if with fidelity and honesty of purpose he makes use of the wider opportunities which now every citizen takes for granted, then he will be among those who are helping to forge a new tradition in every way worthy of the old.

***

Ruskin, who sprinkled many a homely truth among his art teachings, said that, “The weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which worthily used will be a gift also to his race for ever.” In how many of us, I wonder, does the gift lie dormant? It is like a seed which must be fed and watered before it can yield its fruit, and wether it will be a weakly or a sturdy plant depends mainly on just how much attention we are prepared to give it. Honest, persevering work is the first requirement, and with it goes the courage to battle with any defect of our own temperament, whether of impatience or carelessness or laziness, that will hinder and thwart our progress. In this way a man may become a competent handicraftsman, turning out work which will not shame him.

***

But say he wants more than this. He has seen examples of fine craftsmanship and is ambitious to become a really fine craftsman. It means still deeper cultivation, not only by still further increasing the skill of his hands but by feeding his intelligence as well. He has to train his eye to recognise beauty of form and to teach his heart to love it, so infecting his judgment that it becomes intuitively fine, expressing itself in the smallest part of whatever thing he is making. To the craftsman of old much of this came by inherited instinct, fed by the example of the older men and the examples of fine work all about him. We have consciously to acquire it and go out to seek examples for ourselves. Time and opportunity are on our side. What we most need is the will.

***

And that I fancy is the crux of the whole matter. In our wisest moments we see the good we strive to follow, but we are not always wise. Other things come in to distract and deter us, it is so easy to drift along, always intending to do this thing but somehow never quite succeeding. We hold part of ourselves back, that last ounce it hurts us to give, because to give it we have really to live actively in every fibre of our being and give up some of the easier, indolent pleasures. Is it worth the sacrifice? We know, in our best moments, how greatly it is worth it. When we have achieved a piece of work which we know is really good, when our whole being thrills with the satisfaction of it, we are touching a kind of happiness which nothing else yields, a happiness which alone satisfies the deepest craving of our nature. We need the strength and courage so to work that the things we fashion with our hands express the best that is in us. Our purpose is there, our knowledge, these things we can compass. But to express them at their highest takes the staunch will, the integrity of purpose that does not count the cost. Enough that in so doing we find our own highest fulfillment.

Kara Gebhart-Uhl, Christopher Schwarz and I have selected a few of our favorites from “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years” – some have already been posted; there are some still to come. Chris wrote about the project that “these columns during the Hayward years are like nothing we’ve ever read in a woodworking magazine. They are filled with poetry, historical characters and observations on nature. And yet they all speak to our work at the bench, providing us a place and a reason to exist in modern society.”

Our hope is that the columns – selected by Kara from among Hayward’s 30 years of “Chips from the Chisel” editor’s notes – will not only entertain you with the storied editor’s deep insight and stellar writing, but make you think about woodworking, your own shop practices and why we are driven to make. When Australian toolmaker Chris Vesper (vespertools.com) read “A Kind of Order” it prompted him to write a few responses, one of which we give you below.

— Fitz

Everything in its Place

Hands and mind work as one to create when a maker is in the zone – be it woodwork, making furniture, fixing the lawnmower, working on an old car, or machining some gizmo in the sanctity of space that is your workshop on a lathe and milling machine.

When working on a project or even just tinkering the excitement can be palpable, especially when the finish is in sight among the setbacks (and occasional oopsies). The bench is a mess, with tools everywhere, things lost under piles of wood shavings and no cares given. And we all know this one: “That 10mm socket has got to be somewhere,” then many minutes later: “HOW the heck did it get there??!” Clearly too much fun is being had! Time lost equals the inverse of size be it chisels, sockets or even spanners. Big ones are easy to find – but small ones?

In our education as makers we refer to glossy mags or online tutorials that show impeccable workshops with perfect lighting. You may even feel some shame at your own space, so you set personal goals; you dream of what could be. But you can’t see that great pile of crud just out of their camera shots.

As for some professional work, with undersides of tabletops and backs of drawers sanded and polished to within an inch of their lives (not to mention the bits you actually see): this way of work is not for everyone, be it from lack of desire or a skill set not quite up to it. We see this perfection and perhaps gaze over our own work, and wonder at our own pleasing sanctuary of shavings piled up knee-high from attacking tear-out in a board. Perhaps we observe the results of a slightly wonky glue up. We see tools not stored properly and perhaps deteriorating from rust or being banged about – all that work to get those tools shiny the first time is lost.

In the intensity of enjoyable work, things will inevitably slip and chaos creep in. In machining work, the tool cart empties as the bench and floor fill with tools, grease and some strange black goop that gets on everything one touches. In woodworking, the tool cabinet and workbench are similarly affected (minus the black goop, hopefully). After a good, all-absorbing session of work I find it therapeutic to tidy and clean as I think back over the job, the tools used and why, the mistakes and the triumphs. Be it a daily ritual or an end-of-job ritual it’s a nice one to have.

Everything in its place.

But always keep this in mind: When I take a photo for social media you don’t know about the unsightly pile of freaky colored rags or glue encrusted ice-cream containers I just flicked out of the way to make the shot a little better.

Editor’s note: For the next several weeks, we will feature some of our favorite columns from “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward” years, along with some thoughts about why these particular columns hit the mark.

This column from 1960 is so timeless and relatable. There’s the inner nagging we all experience when a workshop or tool chest or pantry or closet has become disorganized, full and unmanageable. And then there’s the quiet scolding we all feel while organizing — “I will never let this happen again.” Next, the sweet satisfaction that accompanies the completed work. (Have you ever, later, stepped into your workshop or opened the closet door just to admire the tidiness?) Then the promises, the resolutions. But seemingly always, life gets in the way, as life does, and the whole cycle repeats itself.

Another reason I love this column? In it, Hayward peels back the gloss and reveals something he struggles with and even discloses some enviousness. For as much as I adore Hayward and his Chips from the Chisel columns, sometimes, especially if I read many in one sitting, I feel, well, exhausted. How could one person be so good at all the things? But here, Hayward recognizes his more human side, allowing him to pass along a lesson with empathy.

Finally, there’s his bit of jealousy. How wonderfully perfect is his discovery that all is not as it seems when comparing his workshed to that of his friend’s? And how often do we all do that, tenfold, now that we have social media showing us only the best of the best of everyone’s lives? For every beautiful piece of furniture shown there was the hidden heartbreaking split. For every organized workspace posted on Instagram you didn’t see what it looked like three days prior. For every smile, you didn’t know about last week’s anguish. And yet, Hayward recognizes the importance of reality — “after that I felt much better” — but also uses the experience to ever-push himself — “although the vision still leads me on, not so much now with a feeling of guilt as of an objective to be attained.”

— Kara Gebhart Uhl

A Kind of Order

We need to achieve a kind of order—that will enable us to keep an eye on things

There are few things more immediately rewarding than having a grand old turn out. It produces a feeling of satisfaction that is positively Jack Hornerish, if it was indeed that nursery-rhyme character who said “What a good boy am I,” at least in anyone like myself who never clears up his workshed until driven to it. When I can find no more space for anything or, more shameful still, when the right size screw of which there should be plenty somewhere simply refuses to come to hand, then I really start in. It is an event more or less annual, usually at this time of the year when home activities are getting well under way again. And never, never does it happen without my passing good resolutions to do this more often in future and, what is more, when dirty, tired but happy I stand back to survey the spick and span result, that at least I will in future keep everything in its place and a place for everything. Alas for good resolutions! Sooner or later one comes up against the time factor; things have to be put away in a hurry, odds and ends accumulate, and the whole business starts all over again.

I can confess this the more openly because for years the standard of tidiness always nagging at the back of my mind was the one glimpsed in the workshed of a friend who had recently moved into a new house. As I stared at the tools neatly ranged in position, garden tools hanging on appropriate nails near the door, carpentry tools in racks above the workbench, I felt awed. For John is an artist as well as a first-rate craftsman, a man whose creative gifts keep him in a state of almost perpetual ferment so that time ceases to have any meaning for him. And yet he could achieve this. What a beauty there was in such order and what a lesson there was in it for me. He beamed when I said as much.

The memory remained with me like a conscience, giving me a dismayed feeling of “What would John think of this!” when my own lot got out of hand. But it was not altogether without fruit. Little by little, after every grand turn out, small improvements began to creep in: there would be an additional shelf, extra hooks, even partitioned trays for those elusive screws and nails and small tools (cheap wooden or plastic cutlery trays, with partitions added as desired, are handy for this when time is lacking, as it usually is over this kind of job), so that at least a certain order began to persist through the bad periods. But how it lagged behind John’s I had ruefully to admit. And then, after an interval of some years I met him again and somehow the subject cropped up. He and his wife stared at one another in blank astonishment. “John’s workshop tidy!” she cried. “Oh it can’t have been his you saw. Why, it’s always in a hopeless mess.” Firmly I recalled the time and circumstances of the vision I had seen and they both burst out laughing. It must, they said, have been the one and only time it had ever been tidy.

After that I felt much better, although the vision still leads me on, not so much now with a feeling of guilt as of an objective to be attained. Common sense says that order in one’s work surroundings is an excellent thing, time saving and making for efficiency, in its own way carrying with it an inspiration to good work. Hard fact says that in an imperfect world where time is short and the demands on it fairly heavy, it is not always possible to do things the perfect way and, as always, we have to compromise. We need to achieve a kind of order, something that will enable us to keep an eye on things in general so that nails and screws are to hand if we want them, tools are kept in good, rust-free condition an oddments of wood protected from woodworm. It is no good storing those small choice pieces over the years if, when the time comes to use them, they are riddled with woodworm, liable to spread the pest all around and fit only to be burned. One of the “mucking out” precautions is a quick lick of wood preservative over any pieces that are likely to be stored for some time, and this is the time of the year when extra vigilance is most certainly desirable. 

Everything will not get done at once, but keeping at it, little by little and bit by bit, we do more or less keep pace. The high-lighted moments when we can look round at the perfect picture as we should like to keep it are few and far between, but how good when they come. And how good that we should have them, rather than let good materials go to ruin and the good tools deteriorate which our old faithfuls and the companions of our hands. 

— Charles Hayward