The most useful woodworking classes I took in college were actually in the religion department.
Though I was a journalism major, every time I was allowed an elective class I blew it on Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Christianity and Judaism. I wasn’t comparison-shopping for spiritual guidance. Instead these classes offered me insight into the ways different cultures perceive time, the self and others.
And the classes made me a better turner.
Though I’ve been turning for more than a decade, I didn’t make any real progress until five years ago when I started thinking about some of the Eastern meditation practices I studied as an undergraduate.
The following explanation is a gross simplification: One of the goals of meditation is to focus your mind so you perceive only the present moment. You do not think of the future or the past – only the fleeting bit that you are perceiving. When you get to that point, you can do anything on the lathe (or with a saw, chisel or gouge).
When I can bring my mind to that level of focus, my perception of time can also change. It can stretch or compress, depending on my needs.
Before you start asking me what I’ve been smoking, I encourage you to try it. If you don’t have a lathe, then cut some dovetails and try to clear everything out of your head – everything – except what is happening with the saw in the wood. Don’t think about the next cut or even the next saw stroke.
In photography terms, tighten your aperture to f22, f32 or more. The result will be – also in photography terms – the deepest focus possible in your work and your results.
I’m not one to celebrate or even acknowledge anniversaries, but this has been an odd year.
On four occasions this year I’ve had people approach me at woodworking shows or classes and say almost these exact words:
“I’d love to do what you do for a living, but I don’t have a magazine that will give me a blog with all the promotion you have.”
As a result, I feel the need to do something I rarely do: Set the record straight.
Exactly 10 years ago today I took the first steps toward writing a blog. I was a junior-level editor at Popular Woodworking and we had just launched Woodworking Magazine, an advertising-free publication that was aimed at investigating basic skills and exploring handwork.
Our parent company, F&W Media Inc., had indulged us and let us try a few issues as long as we didn’t spend any money on staff, manuscripts, illustrations or photography. After printing the first issue of Woodworking Magazine, I was driving home from a family event in Chicago and was wondering: How are we going to get people to read this magazine if we can only publish it once or twice a year?
Somewhere on I-65 I remembered my cousin, Jessamyn West. She was one of the first bloggers, though I didn’t really know what the word “blog” was. I thought her site was an online diary-thing.
What, I wondered, would happen if I did what Jess did but wrote about woodworking? Could it build an audience for the magazine? If readers liked what they read on the “weblog” they might buy the magazine on the newsstand.
After much arm-twisting (thanks to Steve Shanesy), I was granted an audience with our three “new media” guys during a lunch at the worst health-food store in the city. The head of new media was a part-time DJ on the weekends and had a blog that he used to document the raves and dances he worked. So he was the expert.
His question: “How are you going to get readers to pay for this blog?”
My answer: “We won’t. It will be free.”
Question: “You’re going to give away free content? You can’t afford to do that.”
Answer: “I know.”
Question: “So who is going to generate all this free content and keep people coming back every day or week?”
Answer: “I will.”
It took more than four months from that disgusting lunch to get a blog set up on our servers and connected to the fledgling web site for Woodworking Magazine. During those four months I wrote a lot of sample blog entries that proved it could be done (thank you, newspaper job).
The blog launched in May 2005 and has continued to this day. I don’t know (or really care) how many entries I’ve written; it’s easily more than 3,000. During the last 10 years, I can honestly say my blogs have not sucked up any advertising or promotion revenue on a budget line. Instead, they have generated money.
And that’s the point.
If you want to do this, you don’t need a magazine or a promotion budget. You don’t need to beg other bloggers to promote your work. If what you write is good, the work will promote itself. You don’t need SEO or SEM or Google AdSense. Screw all the stupid lists of things you need to do to promote your work. Don’t take free tools. Don’t take anything. Just give.
Write about stuff you care about. Write honestly. Write often. Don’t be afraid of what other people think. And don’t build your reputation by trampling your fellow craftsmen. A flaming a$$%ole will soon flame out.
If you do all those things above and some people hate you, that means you have struck a nerve. And it’s good to feel something. Most writing makes me feel nothing.
Below my sig is the first blog entry that appeared on the Woodworking Magazine weblog. As I read it now, it’s not my best work. But it’s not bad, for 2005. I can do better. And I will.
After studying the topic of workbenches for years, it’s clear that — like automobiles — they’ve gotten much more complex since the heyday of the 18th century cabinetmaker. The vises do amazing tricks, cabinets below the top store an entire arsenal of tools, and there are accessories and clamps that allow you to hold any piece of wood in any orientation.
But that doesn’t mean that workbenches have gotten better.
As benches have become complex, some designs have discarded simple features that early woodworkers thought were essential. The tops became shorter and wider. This increased width makes it more difficult to clamp some work to the top and prevents you from working on long pieces (early workbenches could be up to 12′ long!). Aprons were added below the benchtop so you could use a thinner top. This apron gets in the way of some clamping operations.
The top was extended out over the legs, preventing you from clamping long boards, panels or doors securely to the front of the bench.
The handy storage cabinets below can interfere with basic clamping and jigging. Some vises, while more versatile, were made entirely of iron, which can damage your tools.
Among the myriad modern accessories, some have proven to be useful advancements while others are merely more expensive (but interesting) solutions to clamping problems that were once fixed by the humble and boring holdfast. The height of the bench was increased to get the work closer to your face, but this made some hand and power operations inefficient or unnecessarily tiring.
When we designed a workbench for Woodworking Magazine, it was on the principle that it should be only as complex as necessary, and no more. It had to hold our work for a wide variety of hand and power tool operations. And it had to be inexpensive, easy to build and easy to modify.
As luck would have it, that bench already exists. It was drawn by Andre Jacob Roubo in his landmark book “L’art du menuisier” (1769-1775) (Originals of this four-volume set are expensive. You can buy a reprint here: http://www.archambault.ca). So we gathered up all our old books and began sketching out the cover project for the September 2005 issue. Here’s what we’re thinking today: $32 in hardware, dimensional pine and traditional joints.
Furniture maker David Savage has posted a review of “The Book of Plates” on his blog today.
I wasn’t sure what he would think of the book. His furniture is so incredibly contemporary, that it would be easy for a modern maker to dismiss the work of A.J. Roubo as irrelevant or obsolete.
But then David is also an artist who values highly the skill of drawing.
If you would like to read his entire entry, go here.
Here is a brief excerpt:
This book is just stunning! Why in this three-second-attention-span age should we need an American publisher to show us the work of an almost forgotten French furniture maker? We deserve the celebrity-ridden, cultural desert we inhabit – so we should celebrate and recognise the publishers who take this delightfully contrarian view. It will have taken conviction and determination to do this – this alone should be celebrated.
So what have they done, this small independent American (dammit) publisher?
They have found and published the writings of an almost forgotten and largely ignored French writer, designer and craftsman, called Andre-Jacob Roubo. This is a man who not only has the technical skill of great maker, but the illustrative ability of an artist and, to complete the circle, the communicative ability of a writer.
“The Book of Plates” is available from the Lost Art Press store, where it is shipped in a box made from baby seals who were clubbed by Festool employees. It also is available from our retailers here.
As you design your tool chest, a little bit of cypherin’ can make a tool chest seem like the Tardis – way bigger on the inside than it should be.
This traveling chest carries a remarkable amount of tools in its 28” long x 18” deep by 16” tall carcase because it imitates a lot of older tool chests I’ve observed. Those numbers above are one of the typical sizes you’ll see for a working chest (plus or minus a few inches here and there). Another set of common numbers is found in my Anarchist’s Tool Chest.
Where do these numbers come from? Our tools and our bodies, which is to say, from our bodies. The 28” length allows you to fit a long jointer plane and your panel saws inside – a critical dimension. The 18” depth is a standard depth for carcases, it also creates a box that one person can lift (ignoring the weight of the loaded chest for a moment).
The height? When this chest is complete with its lid it will be 18” tall. A square profile view is another standard form you’ll find in furniture, and it creates a stable case compared to a much taller carcase. I’ve also noticed how many chests seem to be divided into thirds along their vertical axis. The bottom third (about 6” or 7” of height) is for heavy tools such as bench planes, the big dinosaurs of our tool chest strata. The middle third (another 6”) is for the medium-sized tools in a big sliding till – braces, hand drills, some joinery planes and hammer. The top third is for the little bits, such as layout tools, knives, little planes and the like.
Today I finished fitting out the interior of this chest by adding a till for backsaws. I made it much like the till for the panel saws, except there are two bits of wood and the wood bits are wider because I want to hold three joinery saws.
The wooden holders are arranged so the saws can go into the rack either with their handles on the left or the right (I want them on the left so their horns are protected).
And yes, the wood is white oak – it’s what I have on hand after making the tills and runners. Several readers have questioned the wisdom of using oak because of its pH and tannin content. I’ve seen a lot of oak in old tool chests, and here is my reasoning:
If you use your tools and keep them wiped down with oil, like a responsible mechanick, you will not have a problem with corrosion. If you plan to store your tools for a long time without using them, consider Tupperware and rust-inhibiting paper. Wood is acidic. Period. But if you take care of your tools, oak isn’t going to give you any trouble.
Now I just have to turn the handles for the carcase and wait for the lid to arrive….
