Lost Art Press

The Journeyman

Posted on by fitz

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The Journeyman Smith

What is a journeyman smith?

The first time that I remember hearing the term journeyman applied to any particular trade was about twenty-nine years ago, at which time I was quite a youth. The word was employed at the end of every verse of a somewhat lengthy song, called the “Journeyman Tailor.” The real meaning of the word, or why it was applied to trades, became to me a vast and not over lucid problem.

Feeling anxious to learn its exact meaning, I applied to my maternal author for a definition of the term. After receiving the answer, that it applied to all tradesmen or mechanics that had finished their apprenticeship, I felt as much enlightened as before.

The word journey, I knew, related to travel; the combination only was a puzzle. How a carpenter, or smith, or tailor, with steady employment and a permanent domicil, should be styled or called a traveling mechanic, was more than my comprehension could fathom. To arrive at the solution of this problem was ever my great aim. Numberless times have I asked of master mechanics its true meaning, and in the end invariably found myself no wiser than before.
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Lie-Nielsen Show in Charleston with Roy Underhill

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Charleston, S.C., is my favorite city, and so it pains me that I’m not going to be able to attend the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event there next month. My liver and cholesterol, however, are well-pleased by this unfortunate turn of events.

This year, the Lie-Nielsen staff has arranged a pre-show event to visit Drayton Hall, which offers a period rush like no other place I’ve been. It’s an 18th-century plantation that is unrestored. No modernization. No electricity. No horrible 1970s “reconstructions.”

I’ve been to Drayton many times (once during a hurricane), and never get tired of it as a woodworker. Every plaster and wooden detail has been left alone for you to discover, even the marks on a door frame that record the heights of the family’s children.

I wish I had more inspiring words other than: You need to see this. It will open your eyes to the 18th-century way of making things.

To add even more fun to the mix, Roy Underhill will be on hand during the tour to offer commentary and interpretation.

The special tour is 11 a.m. Thursday April 9. Call 1-800-327-2520 to reserve your place at $32 per person.

Then the whole crew will head to the American College of the Building Arts for a presentation by Roy Underhill and dinner at the Craftsman Tap House. In my mind, it’s a perfect day.

Oh, and there’s two more days of a Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event at the American College of the Building Arts on April 10-11. And it’s all in the most gorgeous city in the world with amazing food and great, great architecture.

Sigh.

Maybe next year.

Read more details on the Lie-Nielsen site here. And hoist a few beers for me at the Craftsman Tap House.

— Christopher Schwarz

Grind Twice, Young Chiseler

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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“Do not condemn the cutting qualities of a new tool until you have ground it more than once, as invariably you will find a perfect edge on the second if not the first time grinding.”

— Charles Buck, of Buck Bros., in “A Few Points on Sharpening to Users of Wood Working Tools.” For more on “decarb,” see this old post I wrote.

The Best Beekeepers…

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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The best words of advice I’ve heard sound simple until you give them some thought. Here are three things to consider.

“Good beekeepers have to figure some things out for themselves.”

This was a simple statement made by a beekeeper and mother to her teenaged woodworker who was struggling with sharpening, setting up a handplane and producing a nice surface.

She didn’t know about woodworking, but she knew about farming and bees. And when her young son despaired that he could not get his plane to work, she spoke those 10 fantastic words:

“Good beekeepers have to figure some things out for themselves.”

A couple years ago I heard Mike Siemsen of “The Naked Woodworker” DVD fame discussing workbenches with a new woodworker.

Question: What about moisture content blah, blah, blah?

Siemsen: Don’t worry about it. It will work out fine.

Question: But the wood species yadda yadda annular rings shinka shinka gymnosperms?

Siemsen: It will all work out fine. I wouldn’t worry about it.

Question: So E-value, Janka rating and tangent grain? Roubo, Nicholson and Klausz?

Yoda: Fine it will all work out. Worry not.

…this conversation continued for another 30 minutes in the same format.

Third vignette. Matthew Sheldon Bickford, author of “Mouldings in Practice,” ends his book with the best single-word ending sentence in the history of woodworking writing. Stick with me here.

“Be willing to succeed by being willing to fail,” he writes on page 241. “Tie yourself to your actions. Stop reading. Err!”

— Christopher Schwarz