Last night I swept out my shop in Fort Mitchell, rescued a few boards of old-growth yellow pine I’d forgotten about and took out the trash for the last time.
I built the shop 18 years ago, when Lucy was pregnant with Katy (who is leaving for college in 12 days). It was the first shop where I had a window, an outside door and – eventually – wooden floors.
This is where I built all the projects for “The Joiner & Cabinet-Maker,” “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” “Campaign Furniture,” and “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” Not to mention hundreds of other projects for magazine articles and commissions for customers.
Typing this out, I think I’m supposed to feel sad by leaving this space behind. The truth is, I simply wonder what will become of the space when the new owners move in this week. I left the wood rack in place. Plus the clamp rack. All it needs is a workbench and maybe a box for some tools….
In the excerpt for “The Difference Makers” you’ll have access to the contents, preface, a long introduction filled with woodworking history and the chapter on Garrett Hack, which has, perhaps, one of the funniest stories you’ll read in the entire book. Simply go here.
In the excerpt for “Making & Mastering Wood Planes” you’ll have access to the contents, a foreword by James Krenov, an introduction and all of Chapter 5: Planing Techniques. Chapter 5 includes detailed information on how to prepare to plane, edge-joining techniques, flattening and truing surfaces, polishing surfaces, squaring end grain, profiling, and finishing hand-planed surfaces. For this one, go here.
Until Elia Bizzari showed up, I was one of the youngest guys in the room. And I’m a codgery 51 years old.
Of all the incredible things I learned during the weekend, virtually none of it – zero, zip, nada – was stuff you can find in online videos.
These two thoughts are related. The amazing generation of white-haired woodworkers at that event are just as likely to start a YouTube channel as Thomas Lie-Nielsen is to move his factory to China. It’s not that these woodworkers aren’t intelligent or skilled or have a deep desire to share what they know. They have all those things – as much as any YouTube creator I’ve met.
It’s just that digital media – creating it, maintaining it, promoting it – is not their bag.
It’s not my bag, either. I made the choice to make books. And I will spend the rest of my days fighting to preserve the knowledge of other people in books and on this blog. (If you think it should be preserved via digital video, I encourage you to start your own company to do this.)
But most of all, I encourage you to shut your laptop or iPad and experience real life woodworking. Join one of the fantastic organizations that are filled with people with vast experience and memories. Have a meal with them. Go to their seminars. Ask them questions. Put your hands on the tools and see the work being done before your eyes. Real life is different than video. It has a taste. A smell.
One might say it is the difference between online pornography and true love. But I don’t know anything about that.
As a practicing aesthetic anarchist, I don’t tend to join organizations. It’s not my bag. But there are three that I have long been a member of and adore:
Oh, I am also a member of the Black Keys fan club. And I am a former member of the Radio Shack Battery Club, but that is sadly defunct.
All three woodworking/tool organizations have low – piddling, really – membership fees. And you get so much more back for that money. Especially access to that deep, life-long knowledge that is hard to acquire and is – like it or not – best shared in person.
During our most recent open day, Derek Jones gave a great lecture about French polishing for the attendees, and that made me think: We should do this every month.
So on our next open day, Saturday Aug. 10, I will give a free lecture at 2 p.m. on scrapers. This is a demonstration that I recently gave to the Society of American Period Furniture Makers. It covers sharpening scrapers, cabinet scrapers and scraping planes. Plus how to use all three tools and how to grind card scrapers to special shapes to deal with mouldings.
This is not information that I have published before. And it’s absolutely not going to be a sales pitch for the Crucible card scraper or any other product. It’s just a way for us to give back something to the woodworking community that supports us.
(I know someone is going to ask this in the comments, but we don’t have the technology to film or stream events from the storefront. So this is something that will occur in real life only. Apologies.)
Megan and I brainstormed a bunch of ideas for future lectures, everything from installing butt hinges to cutting mitered dovetails. If you have a particular topic that you would like to see, let us know in the comments and we will consider it.
As always, our open days are intended to be a fun way for you to meet other woodworkers, learn a bit about the craft and visit Covington and Cincinnati. If you ask, we will sell you a book or tool, but commerce is not the reason we open our doors.
The open day is from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 10 at our storefront. The store is located at 837 Willard St., Covington, Ky. 41011. Hope to see you there.
