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.
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 a few sentences about why these particular columns hit the mark.
If you know anything about me, my primary reason for selecting this 1937 column as a favorite will be readily apparent. But beyond the (perhaps) obvious, I find it’s important we be reminded from time to time to really look at what’s around us rather than just moving through it, and to be constantly learning.
— Fitz
Mind Upon Mind
“You can’t make bricks without straw” is an old adage which we have taken from the woes of the Israelites, groaning in bondage to the Egyptians. Every “maker” that is to say, every craftsman, artist, writer—learns it by sheer necessity. There is a material he needs just as much as the immediate timber or stone, paint and ink with which he works. It is a remoter thing which he has to glean from the world about him: ideas and knowledge garnered in to render the skill of his hands effective. It is no good being taught how to do a thing if he does not observe and extend his learning. A man may be taught how to make a perfect joint, but it takes knowledge and experience to learn when and where to use it; just as a man needs more than a technical knowledge of drawing and painting to become an artist, more than a knowledge of how to frame sentences to become a writer.
***
There is a commerce of ideas continually going on in the world. Nowadays beginners still have to learn the technique of their craft from older men, just as they did in the craft workshops of the past, and they learn by carrying out instructions as exactly as possible, copying their teachers as closely as possible. We are told by Vasari that, when Raphael was learning to paint in the workshop of Pietro Perugino, “he imitated him so exactly in everything that his portraits cannot be distinguished from those of his master, nor indeed can other things.” And later, when he had left the workshop and was working on his own in Florence, the centre of inspiration to all the great Renaissance painters, we still find him studying the works of other men. “This excellent artist studied the old paintings of Masaccio in Florence, and the works of Leonardo and Michelangelo which he saw induced him to study hard, and brought about an extraordinary improvement in his art and style.…It is well known that after his stay in Florence, Raphael greatly altered and improved his style, and he never reverted to his former manner, which looks like the work of a different and inferior hand.” So says Vasari, who was no mean judge.
***
The man who is going to be of any account will be the man who makes best use of his powers of observation to enlarge the equipment of his mind. As Professor Gilbert Murray says somewhere: “The great difference, intellectually speaking, between one man and another is simply the number of things they can see in a given cubic yard of world.” The other day I heard an intelligent youngster talking to another about some silver birch trees he had noticed down the road. “I didn’t see them,” his companion said. The first boy looked at him astonished. “D’you go about half dead?” he demanded. It is what we are all apt to do at times. We are occupied with our own thoughts and forget to look outside ourselves till very often necessity, which, like the Egyptians of old, is a stern taskmaster, forces us to it. For to the craftsman in any medium, ideas built upon observation of the work of other men as well as that of nature are a necessity, if they are to be creative workers in any sense of the word.
***
The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary. In a law case lately in which a famous actress was involved the judge had once more to enunciate the old legal axiom that “there is no copyright in ideas.” Ideas are constantly being exchanged, seized upon and developed. They are the common currency of mankind, the means by which, consciously or unconsciously, we learn from one another. But to be of any value they have to be carefully submitted to the bar of our own judgment and reflected upon. Only by so doing can we extract the essential “straw” from them which will help us to make bricks of our own. The idea which is simply annexed becomes weakened in transit. But if it is absorbed, wrought upon by the individual mind, it gathers new elements. We can see the process at its best in Shakespeare—the man who took his plots from old plays and stories, and so wrought upon them with his mind that they became charged with greatness, suffering “a sea-change into something rich and strange.” A man who went about with open eyes and mind indeed for the passions and the foolishness of men, their dreams and futile longings, their littlenesses and greatnesses, observant of all the country sights and sounds which weave them-selves into the music of his verse: the “daffodils that come before the swallow dares, and take the winds of March with beauty.”
***
It may seem a far call from the ordinary man in a small workshop to Shakespeare. But the mystery of it is that the elements of the craft are the same, even though the results may be so different. Like Shakespeare we have to get our “straw” where we can find it, and the more we search for it the less likely are we to belong to the “half dead,” the men who neither see things nor do things but become as standardised as the window frames they put in houses. Shakespeare filled his mind with the rich material of the living world, pondered it and used it as the fuel of his genius. Raphael, for ever learning and studying even when he had fledged his wings, became one of the greatest masters of the Italian Renaissance. The quality of genius is not in every man, but there is a quality which is the very essence of himself, which is able to express itself in his work if he will give it the wherewithal to feed upon so that it may live. The trouble with us nowadays is that there is so much to distract us that we are apt to fritter our time away on nothing. But on the other hand we have opportunities for widening and enriching our knowledge with the old craftsmen might well have envied. And now that the holiday season is approaching, and those of us who would ordinarily be tied to office or workshop will be moving about the country more freely, we might well keep our eyes and ears open a little more. A friend who is a well-known artist once told me of a visit he had paid to Arundel Castle, talking in detail of the many beautiful pieces of furniture he had noticed on his way through the rooms. I, who had also visited Arundel Castle, remembered not a quarter of it, but I had such a lesson in observation from his eager descriptions that the next time I intend going with a pair of eyes in my head. For it is not only the looking but the way we look that counts.
Make a Tree from a Map: New York City (light) and Melbourne (dark).
Many a woodworker, no matter the season, can identify every tree in their yard and neighborhood. You recognize and value trees for the wood they provide for your shop and also their role in improving our environment. Part of the craft of woodworking is that many of will also be citizen scientists, both in your knowledge of, and protection of trees. Street (or public) tree maps are another resource to learn more about trees, enhance your enjoyment of your community and can be another sort of travel map.
Although most of the following maps are for large cities, there are many smaller cities that have tree maps and inventories and there are many more cities looking for volunteers to help map trees. Every map is a document to help educate the public about the benefit of trees in the community, how trees are cared for, why and how more trees will be planted and how the public will help.
How do these maps work?
This is the tree map for Singapore. After zooming in I selected a tree (blue arrow) to find out what it is.
This is the information about the tree I selected. It is a Jemerlang Laut known by several other names including the Yellow Flame. As you can see it is native to Singapore and is critically endangered. The pruning schedule is cut off, however, it is due for a “haircut” in the second quarter of 2020.
From the photo gallery you can see the leaves and flowers. These are some of the options to be found on street tree maps. Singapore’s map can be found here.
The sidebar on New York City’s map provides statistics, recent tree activity (pruning, litter clean-up, damage) and the ecological benefits of trees (water savings, energy savings). There are options to report problems and also plans for plantings and removals. This map also let’s you search for a specific location. New York City’s map can be found here.
One of the delights of opening a tree map is the color schemes you will encounter and Melbourne doesn’t disappoint. Part of Melbourne’s planting scheme involves identifying where the most vulnerable residents are, the tree canopy density is low and which streets are hottest in summer. Melbourne’s Urban Forest map can be found here.
What is all that pink on London’s map? Plane trees. London Plane trees. What is New York City’s most common tree? London Plane tree. The current map shows 700,000 trees, however, it is estimated there are over eight million trees in London. That is a lot of mapping still to do. You can find London’s map here.
As you zoom in and the color dots start getting a bit further apart it is easier to pinpoint an individual tree. The information boxes for each tree will vary. Amsterdam’s map provides a full plate of information including when the tree was planted. The planting date combined with the expected life span of tree species in the urban environment is used to plan for future replacement. For the ecologist it is a data point of use in studying a tree species in the complicated urban environment. Amsterdam’s tree map is here.
Montreal’s trees are plotted over a satellite image of the city (you can see your own street and house). In this screen shot the color legend really highlights how the same tree species was planted on long stretches of a street (this is not unique to Montreal). As the climates in our cities change what will be the effect on the lack of tree diversity on a particular street? This is another use for tree maps. You can find Montreal’s map here.
Some Special Features and Options
The next few examples have options that might not be available on all maps.
Vancouver allows the selection of four parameters (either individually or in combination) needed for studying trees: age, diameter, height and species. Wowee! In the above screen shot I selected one parameter: trees between 50 ft-100 ft in height.
In this second screen shot I selected trees with a diameter between 50 and 150 inches. Vancouver’s map can be found here.
Another set of trees you might find in a map are heritage trees. Seattle’s tree map includes heritage trees (in orange) and reminds the viewer the trees may be on private land, in a park or be a street tree. As this map notes, a heritage tree is “distinguished by botanical, historic or landmark significance such as size, age or uniqueness.” Seattle’s map can be found here.
This is a map of the flowering trees of Washington D.C. (provided by Casey Trees a non-profit group involved in restoring and protecting the tree canopy of the city). Peak cherry blossom time happens to right now (March 21-24). The map is for the 2019 season but should still be good. The flowering tree map can be found here.
I did not search every tree on every map so perhaps not all cities record stumps. St. Louis (birthplace of the founder of the blog) recorded tree stumps. I commend the thoroughness of the fine mappers of the Show Me State. The St. Louis map can be found here.
“On, Wisconsin!”
Wisconsin has a state tree map. When the map is opened find the community list, make your selection and it will take you there. The tree species list scrolls up and down to help the viewer identify the trees. The screen shows Green Bay. The Wisconsin map can be found here.
By the way, Wisconsin is the leading manufacturer of paper products in the United States. Paper products includes the very precious commodity we call toilet paper. Green Bay is the toilet paper capital of the world (should that be capitalized?). If a state can map all the trees in its communities I am confident they are running at full capacity to manufacture and supply all those in need of toilet paper in these very trying times. We will have our toilet paper and we will be OK.
Stuck at Home
Not everyone reading this blog can leave their homes unless it is to find and buy essential items. The luxury of a neighborhood stroll to find and identify your local trees is limited or not possible. Instead, zoom in and take a virtual walk or plan a walk in a city you want to visit in the future. Make a mini-map of your neighborhood or favorite park.
Michael Natale, resident of New York’s East Village, made this map over a period of 4 years. He photographed and gathered information on 550 trees. Your map doesn’t have to be this detailed.
Tree maps will go with me on future travels. In the interim the maps are providing some interesting patterns on paper. So, for now it is by hand and eye and origami.
When F+W Media fired Megan Fitzpatrick on Dec. 5, 2017, there were people inside and outside the organization who gloated over the news. That statement isn’t news. I am qualified to tell you that you don’t get to be the editor of a magazine or newspaper without making a few enemies.
I’m sure their hope was that Megan would leave the woodworking media industry with her tail between her legs. Perhaps she’d get a job in public relations or with a business-to-business magazine. Those are honorable places to land, but they are a step down from the high-wire act that is editing a national consumer magazine.
But Megan didn’t disappear into an invisible job. And today, the shoe is on the other foot.
F+W imploded, went bankrupt and sold off its assets for pennies on the dollar. The people who gloated over her firing were dismissed or have dissipated into the ether.
Megan, on the other hand, has just had her first article published in Fine Woodworking magazine (April 2020, issue 281). She is the editor of The Chronicle, the journal of the Early American Industries Association – a part-time gig. She is in high demand as a woodworking teacher all over the country. She publishes work through her own imprint, Rude Mechanicals Press, and copy edits Mortise & Tenon Magazine. She dove into commission work and now sells tool chests and other custom furniture pieces. And yes, she does some work for Lost Art Press (plus some other jobs that I’m sure I’ve forgotten).
She earned this work on her own merits, including the work she does for me. (I have a pile of resumes of people who want to edit our stuff. I am lucky to have her.)
As far as I can tell, she makes as much (or maybe more) money than she did at Popular Woodworking. And she’s a happier person, to boot (I am also qualified to tell you that editing a magazine is not a tonic for mental health).
Why am I telling you this? She cannot. She signed a non-disclosure agreement (an NDA) when she left F+W and honors that agreement, even though the company is kaput. I, however, never signed an NDA.
So congrats go out today to Megan. Who survived and thrived after a media company tried to kick her to the curb.
After making Welsh stick chairs for almost 17 years, I am accustomed to strong reactions to the form.
“I hate to tell you this,” said one recent visitor. “But I think Welsh stick chairs are butt ugly.”
Asked another: “You sell these chairs? How much money for a ‘regular’ chair? You know, a ‘normal’ one.”
Or the always fun: “Really? I mean, really?”
These comments don’t hurt my feeling. In fact, I like the fact that the chair’s design is polarizing. I’ve never enjoyed making least-common denominator anything. Chris Williams, the author of “Good Work: The Chairmaking Life of John Brown,” seems to feel the same way. He wrote:
“They are all different – and a smidgen off being ugly to some.”
What keeps me going on these chairs is a short encounter about four years ago. I was getting set up in our storefront in Covington, Ky., and had just assembled a pair of Welsh stick chairs for a customer. Still in the white, they looked like albino porcupines with their pale wood and untrimmed wedges jutting out every which way.
To get them out of the way, I stuck the twin chairs on top of one of the workbenches by the storefront window and turned my attention to something else at my bench.
A few minutes later, I heard tires screech to a stop outside the store. I looked up and a car had jerked to a stop in front of the window. After about 30 seconds, a young woman got out of the car – still blocking the entire street – and she scurried to the store’s entrance. I thought she might have a medical emergency, and I met her at the door.
“What,” she asked, “are those chairs?”
I told her: Welsh stick chairs. She orbited the chairs a few times and asked to touch the faceted legs and stretchers. Meanwhile I watched her abandoned car from the corner of my eye, the driver’s side door still hanging open.
“I saw them and had to stop,” she said. “I want to buy one.”
I explained that these two were bound for the West Coast but that I could build her another. I gave her my contact information and she reluctantly left, looking at the chairs the way my wife looked at our kids when she left them at day care.
I never heard back from the woman, but that’s OK. It is still a good moment when your furniture can stop traffic.
From the photo gallery you can see the leaves and flowers. These are some of the options to be found on street tree maps. Singapore’s map can be found 
Another set of trees you might find in a map are heritage trees. Seattle’s tree map includes heritage trees (in orange) and reminds the viewer the trees may be on private land, in a park or be a street tree. As this map notes, a heritage tree is “distinguished by botanical, historic or landmark significance such as size, age or uniqueness.” Seattle’s map can be found 
