Category: Yellow Pine Journalism

There was a lot of stupid macho bullcrap in the shops where I worked, likely because of the stupid macho woodworkers who worked there. (Hiya, Meatfart! Remember me?)

The basic flavor of the crap: “If you can’t do this operation as well as I can, you ain’t a real woodworker.”

Sadly, we see a lot of students here who torture themselves when they plane up boards or chop dovetails. They want their parts to look like they came off the cover of a book or a video on YouTube – even though that level of perfection won’t affect the look of the assembled piece.

This blog post seeks to help you forget a few things – parlor tricks, mostly – that aren’t important. And perhaps it will help you enjoy the work a little more.

Sharpening

We all know there’s a sharpening cult that preaches that your edges should slice newspaper or shave your arm hair (I think the cult’s goal is keep us hairless and uninformed, like mushrooms). I honestly never have tested my edges with these methods. Instead, I just go to work.

If the tool does its job, then it is sharp. 

Just remember the mantra of Tony Konovaloff: “Grind, hone, get back to work.” Sharpen and work. Sharpen and work. Do both, and you will get better at both.

Last week I watched two carpenters repair old double-sash windows at Larry’s, our local dive bar. One of the carpenters ground the bevel of his chisel on the pavement and then polished it off on the granite step of the bar with the help of a loogie. Then he went back to work, doing a nice job.

Inspecting the Garbage

When you cook a fine meal, do you judge your success by the quality of the scraps of food in the sink and compost pile? Nope. Neither should you judge your woodworking by the thinness of the shavings from your handplane. Instead, focus on the work, not the waste. Take the thickest shaving you can manage while still having the wood’s surface look good. 

Thin shavings are for occasional situations where the wood won’t behave with any other treatment. 

Want to work five times faster? Shoot for a .005”-thick shaving instead of a lacy, lighter-than-an-angel-fart .001”.

Inside, I’m a Wreck

I have never understood why people get so worked up about a little torn end grain inside a dovetail joint. The inside of a joint is a personal matter between you and the furniture conservator 300 years in the future. 

When you chop out waste, and some of it is unsupported, you’ll get some torn-off chunks. It happens to me all the time. Sure, I could pare and pare and pare to get my insides looking as good as my outsides. But it’s pointless. 

Knock out the waste, assemble the joint and spend all the time you saved making the show surfaces look nice.

Shimmering Meaninglessness

When you get a little skill with a handplane, it frequently becomes a game to make your boards look perfect right from the plane. Sometimes, the wood behaves, and this is an easy task. But most of the time, wood demands the following regimen, which has been practiced for hundreds of years.

1. Plane the surface until you cannot make it look any better.
2. Scrape any surfaces that need help because of tear-out.
3. Briefly sand all surfaces with a fine abrasive to blend the planed and scraped surfaces.

Yes, planed surfaces look beautiful without finish. But after you put a finish on, things change. A well-sanded surface looks indistinguishable from a planed one. 

I love my handplanes – they are faster than sanding in most cases. But I have no desire to plane a tabletop for two hours. That’s madness. Plane, scrape, sand and move on.

Piston-fit Nothing

This is perhaps the king of the parlor tricks: piston-fit drawers, lids and trays. People get goofy-eyed when you close one drawer and another drawer is forced out by the movement of air. 

Quite frankly, I have found that this is usually an indicator that the drawers are fit too tightly and will stick when the humidity level rises. Drawers should move smoothly, but there are many ways to avoid the piston-fitting nonsense.

French Polished Drawer Bottoms

I don’t finish the insides of most case pieces that are hidden during use. The inside carcase of a chest of drawers doesn’t have to be finished. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be sanded. Put all of your effort into the surfaces that will be seen and touched by the user. The remaining surfaces can be left pretty rough – right from the jack plane or the electric planer.

The Caveat

I know that some woodworkers will object to this blog entry because they are doing woodworking for pure enjoyment or therapy. So they are happy to sharpen to 10,000 grit, treat every surface like a show surface and generally go overboard.

And that’s great. Please go right ahead. Godspeed, even.

But a lot of us have limited time in the shop. You might have children or grandchildren. Plus a difficult job. And you still want to get that dining table built by Christmas. In that case, the above “shortcuts” are perfectly acceptable in my shop and in the shops of many fine professionals. 

Do the best work you can – just don’t make a clock out of everything.

— Christopher Schwarz

Honestly, I thought this moviefilm was almost funny when I made it. But it’s not. As always, if you are dissatisfied with your blog subscription, simply write to us for a full refund.

(And yes, I know it should be “Occupational Safety & Health” – it’s a nod to our British friends who endure Health & Safety over there).

Every shop I’ve worked in had a set of built-in aphorisms – things that are said when you encounter a moment of truth at the bench or when the clamps come off. Michael Dunbar’s chair shop probably had more than 100 sayings that he and his instructors had developed. Taking a class there was like living inside Confucius’s “Analects.”

We have some at our shop. Some of these are said out loud. Some are muttered under one’s breath. Others are too private to speak.

“Let us all now drink to the success of our hopeless endeavor.”

This is a Russian dissident toast that I learned in college. I say it to myself as a little prayer any time I begin a challenging project, which is just about every time I begin a project.

“For those people and that money.”

I’ve heard this one a lot in workshops. It’s said when you botch a job and decide not to fix it. I’ve turned it on its head and say it when something goes really right, or when a piece turns out as expected. It is said as a reminder as to who is the customer.

“If you have to ask the question, then you know the answer.”

I’ve published this one before. We say it whenever someone asks “Should I fix this?” “Does this assembly need to be remade?”

“You have to build a shed-load of furniture.”

I picked this one up from David Savage (rest in peace). I say it to students whenever they despair that they’ll never improve.

“Furniture makers have been hiding mistakes from rich people for thousands of years.”

I first heard this one from furniture maker Jim Stuard. He said it whenever he made a flawless repair to a piece.

“By all means read what the experts have to say. Just don’t let it get in the way of your  woodworking.”

This is a John Brown quote. And I love it. I say it whenever we do something that goes against prevailing internet/magazine/book wisdom.

“La carrière ouverte aux talents.” (The tools to him that can handle them.)

This quote, attributed to Napoleon, I never say out loud. I say it to myself on the rare occasion when I get something exactly right – a joint, a tool setup, etc.

“The things I make may be for others, but how I make them is for me.”

A quote from Tony Konovaloff, I say this when I do things the hard way instead of the easy way on a project. Or I do something that the customer will never notice.

“Sharp fixes everything.”

I say this to students when their tools are dull and they are struggling.

“Don’t make a clock out of it.”

A German workshop expression shared with me by Peter Lanz. We say this whenever someone is making something far more complicated than it should be. And for no good reason.

— Christopher Schwarz

I posted this list on Twitter in a scattershot manner earlier. Some people (Lucy) complained that they somehow missed big parts of this list. So here you go.

You might be a wiener woodworker if:

1. You call yourself a “master” woodworker without the documentation.
2. You write and talk about yourself in the third person.
3. You name simple jigs and processes after yourself.
4. Wear a cape around town.
5. You have used the words “epistemological” or “hegemony” when discussing woodworking.
6. You name your finished pieces like Roman goddess + fancy verb + graduate thesis word + a number. This taco corral is titled: “Vester Remediates the Oligarchy No. 4”
7. You demand that your apprentices brush your teeth.
8. You relish every chance to talk about the difference between “art” and “craft.”
9. You have more T-shirts in your web store than furniture pieces.
10. Your “formal apprenticeship“ was a weekend pen-turning class.
11. “Old-world craftsmanship“ is just the nickname of your narrow-crown stapler.
12. The only two things you’ve ordered from Rockler are hairpin legs and pourable epoxy.
13. You own more beard wax than beeswax.
14. “Every piece is built one at a time” because, well, you’ve only built one piece so far.
15. Your clients (mom and aunt Hazel) come from all over the globe (Paris, Kentucky, and Rome, Georgia).
16. There are honest-to-God un-ironic jars of glitter in your shop.
17. Your business card features two of these terms: bespoke, artisanal, handmade, crafted, maker, “and wedding DJ.”
18. Your headshot on your website features more naked skin than flannel.
19. You have more tattoos than router bits.
20. Your workshop has a logo but no insurance.

— Christopher Schwarz