I often derive great pleasure and profit from reading the choice bits of information in “ours,” and was much interested in reading, in No. 623, suggestions respecting the purchasing of saws. They are from an American source, and will no doubt be very useful to any one purchasing an American-made saw, but are incomplete, and do not contain all the information necessary for any one to possess who desires to know what he is buying of any make. I take the liberty of sending you the following suggestions, and, if you think that they will be of interest to your readers, shall be glad if you will insert them in “ours.”
It would be invidious to recommend any name to be sought after in choosing a hand-saw, but I would say this, give a fair price, and go to a shop of good reputation, and trust to the seller, who should certainly, for his own sake, sell you none but the best maker’s. After trying if the handle suits your hand, and is fixed at such an angle on the plate as to present the teeth at the right angle to the wood when held in the position for working, so that the grain of the wood is not crossways of the handle, as every user of a saw knows to his cost that handles break soon enough with the fibre of the wood lengthways of the weakest parts, without the handle being weakened by the grain being crossways. I have never met with this defect in English-made saws, but have many times in American-made ones. (more…)
CABINET-MAKERS who labour under the disadvantage of belonging to the sterner sex must look to their laurels. The art and mystery is invaded by the ladies, and according to a contemporary the movement in this direction is extending. Not only are the light painted articles of furniture receiving the attention of the fair workers, but carved work is also being executed by their nimble fingers, thanks chiefly to the School of Wood-Carving at South Kensington, which affords practical tuition to a large number of female pupils.
There may be nothing very serious in all this, but it is a fact not to be despised. Feminine competition is gradually affecting the labour market in all sorts of branches, and although, no doubt, a very desirable thing that our “sisters, cousins, and aunts,” should be able to earn their own living, the prospect of men standing idly by while the women do the work, is not particularly pleasing. There is no doubt that they come to many employments with great advantages, being usually more patient, more painstaking, and defter in manual occupations requiring great nicety of touch. Consequently their male coworkers must endeavour to foster these characteristics if they hope to cope successfully with them.
There is one drawback to a workshop full of members of the gentler persuasion. Those conversational powers so frequently granted to them would, we fear, tend somewhat to retard the progress of work, and a suite or sideboard might be disastrously delayed owing to a heated discussion on the merits of a new bonnet or a fresh colour in ribbons, unless, indeed, our fair carvers are superior to such frivolities.
First-time visitors to the Lie-Nielsen Toolworks in Warren, Maine, are sometimes bemused by all the machinery used to make handplanes.
“Wait,” I heard one say during a tour, “I thought you made all these tools by hand – no machines. Shouldn’t hand tools be made by hand?”
Similarly, I get asked the following questions almost every time I’m in public.
“You accept credit cards and call yourself an anarchist?”
“Wait, you don’t process all your stock for your woodworking classes by hand?”
“Don’t you think it’s strange to use the Internet to promote the use of non-electrical tools? That’s an electric tool.”
Since we concocted the lever, wheel and other simple machines, we have always sought to harness some sort of mechanical advantage to make the labor easier. We have drawings of sawmills from 1250. Planing machines go back to at least the 18th century.
These technologies supplied hand-tool shops with the stock to make furniture and other household goods (think: “Little House on the Prairie”). I doubt that any woodworker who built a highboy started the process in the forest with an axe and ended with a French polishing rubber.
So yes, I have some machines. I couldn’t build a campaign chest in a reasonable amount of time if I had to start with the tree. And our ancestors who built campaign chests didn’t start with a tree, either. So as far as I’m concerned, I’m doing things in the historically correct and expedient manner: Machines process the stock; hand tools cut the joinery.
And I’m happy to change modes when the work calls for it. Stick chairs are best when they are built from rived – not sawn – wood. So when I build these sorts of objects, it’s best to start with the tree. It’s efficient. Plus it produces a stronger and better-looking chair.
Similarly, if I ever have to build another Eames piece, I’m going to borrow a hydraulic press to mold the plywood sheets. It’s simply the best route from point A to B.
As to the other questions listed above, here’s how I respond:
1. On credit cards. I don’t like them, but we accept them as a convenience to our customers. Know that we use the smallest bank in town. I know all the tellers’ names; they know mine. When it comes to the topic of banking, I think it’s a matter of who is in charge of the relationship. I have no debts, so the bank has no power over my business. As we are on equal footing, it’s just a matter of negotiating their fees and the interest they pay me on my money.
2. On using the Internet. I consider the Internet to be the most decentralized communication system ever devised. It is, compared to all other forms of mass communication, fairly lawless (in a good way) and democratic (with a small “d.”). Lost Art Press wouldn’t exist without it because the Internet has allowed us to avoid working with book distributors, such as Ingram and Amazon, which seek to control our pricing and our business. So once again, it’s a matter of control.
So when I’m ripping out 600 sticks of mahogany for a class on Roorkhee chair class, I am thankful for the machine that granted me an astonishing amount of freedom, both in woodworking and in making a living.
And when I’m cutting 120 dovetails with a dovetail saw, I am again thankful for the saw in my right hand that has granted me an astonishing amount of freedom in how I cut my joinery and in the resulting appearance of my furniture. Same with handplanes and chisels.
Bottom line: Tools (banking, CNC, carcase saws) can enslave or liberate. Take your pick.
Of working men’s clubs we have in England alone, of one kind or another, about 700; of clubs for working women, so far as we know, but one, and that is one not provided for the class of women to whom we here more particularly refer. Is not this something for our working women to think about? These clubs provide comfortable rooms and attractive amusements, books to read, and in most cases classes for instruction and lectures. Why should not working women have the same advantages? Think of it, working women in the furniture and upholstery trades,—think of it, and act upon the suggestion it offers you.
“Nations which owe their origin to the conquests of successive invaders, however generous and noble in their natures such invaders may be, are not those in which the true rights of women are speedily recognized. In the first place, the wives of the invading race are sought amongst their captives; and it is not likely that the daughters and wives of the slain or defeated could very readily submit themselves to the wills of their imperious and exulting captors. Harsh and cruel treatment systematically indulged in, watchful suspicion, and the enforcement of a slavish spirit of humility and obedience, would, on one side, naturally be the weapon of the enslavers. Falsehood and treachery, the vices natural to a state of fear and degradation, would be the weapons of the enslaved. Thus a relationship would spring up between the sexes anything but honourable or satisfactory to the one or to the other; and it would require long, long years of successive generations to modify that relationship, and gradually beget a feeling of mutual respect, regard, and equality.” (more…)
For the last decade, I’ve been a terrible sleeper. I wouldn’t call it insomnia, but I tend to wake in the middle of the night and think about everything I’m working on.
The solution has been to take melatonin. The upside: I sleep better. The downside: I have the most hyper-realistic dreams ever. Every night.
I’ve come to accept these dreams; but on occasion, they encroach on reality.
I have woken up some mornings convinced that my family has been killed. Or that I have drowned. Or that I am very good at diagnosing the peculiarities of hot air balloons. But the most alarming dream of all happened right after I returned from Australia this year.
I had a dream that I was employed at my old position.
I was in a marketing meeting. And the things that were said were so disturbing that when I finally awoke, I made myself a cup of coffee, sat in our sunroom for a good hour and just stared at the squirrels and cardinals in our yard. One word kept going through my head:
Whew.
It has been exactly two years since I left Popular Woodworking Magazine, and it has become obvious how unemployable I now am. I love to work all the time (12 hours a day, seven days a week, minimum), but I won’t implement someone else’s master plan. When someone suggests a dumb idea for a product for Lost Art Press, I don’t do hours of market research to come up with an empirical way to say “no thanks.” I just say “no thanks,” and move on.
When someone asks me to promote their product, I now (politely) refuse. Even if I like the product, I dig in my heels and decline. I don’t want to be part of anyone’s marketing plan. Yeah, I know that’s not a smart strategy for making friends and “partners.” But when I write about something – anything – I want it to be out of pure enthusiasm. No obligations, even social ones.
Offer me a discount and I’ll overpay you so that I think we’re on equal footing.
For me, this way of life is the hyper-realistic dream – better than anything that 10 tabs of melatonin could conjure from my frontal lobe. And it was made possible by someone I don’t talk about much on this blog: my wife, Lucy May.
I try not to drag her into the day-to-day operations of this blog. Her life as a journalist is public enough, and she doesn’t need me talking about the time I drew a sheep on her bare buttocks. (No, really, I didn’t do that. Honest. See? This is what I’m talking about.)
If it weren’t for Lucy, I would still be in that endless marketing meeting. I would still be employed at my old position. I would still lose sleep over small changes in the “sell-through” percentage of our magazine in bookstores.
But thanks to Lucy, I get up in the morning, I work until my eyes go out of focus and I then sleep. She tolerates the endless travel, the time in the shop, the writing, writing, writing. She never complains.
