Completions, New Starts, and Moving Ever Onward

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As the second week came to a close we found many of our friends closing in on their projects. Many didn't glue-up for logistical reasons, needing to ship their pieces back to their home states is much simpler in a flat box than crating furniture. But still, we got to see projects coming together and fulfillment in work. You can see the joy and tom-foolery that tends to happen when we feel a sense of satisfaction and relief at the completion of our works. I've yet to find a medium of creativity that provides this sense for me to the level that furniture making does. I write songs, I write poems, I draw, I play sports, and, while I love all those things, there's something unique about watching a piece of furniture leave the clamps behind, or take a finish to deepen and expose the beauty of the grain. I think just above you're seeing Walter experience something of the same. Below is Allan's desk and divider sans drawer. A good deal of work for two weeks, and I believe he's quite happy with his piece, as he should be.

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As we move on to other things, I've thought a lot lately about design and what it is to be a designer. I've been diving into the world of Wharton Escherick as of late, and can't seem to escape it. Looking through his house is like meandering into Wonderland, and his works are like stumbling across the White Rabbit or the Mad Hatter—they're strange, yet captivating, and they most certainly serve a purpose, even if the purpose isn't always immediately clear. He's an inspiring craftsman, even if his work doesn't speak to you. And as I've been working on a new design for a wall cabinet that is largely in the Shaker language, I've worked to bring in a little bit of Escherick influence. I've got the drawings at full scale, and while I'm not completely set on a few details, I'm going to press forward into production because, as I've found in the past, the material and "real-space" will allow me to see more what this piece wants to be than will paper and graphite. I'd like to do a post or two on him to give you a better idea of who he was and how he profoundly influenced furniture in the US.

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Lastly, as my wife and I spent our Sunday at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, ME at their Shaker exhibit, I was disappointed to find I couldn't take pictures for your enjoyment. But the show was fantastic, and not just about their furniture. It sheds light on why they made things and what their purpose was, and how that purpose was reflected in the works of their hands. And if that doesn't excite you, they had a foot-powered mortising machine. Oh yes, oh yes. I strongly encourage anyone in the area to check it out if you have a chance, and if not, buy a few books on the shakers. They will influence the way you design furniture, I will put money on it.

We're taking our Next Steps...

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...in furniture making. And you know, the wonderful thing about this thing we call woodworking is that it has the power to bring you into the moment and release the world around you. Over the weekend I had to travel back to NY, where I live, and found out that one of my close relatives had died unexpectedly. That kind of tragedy—which my family is still dealing with—makes the days long and distracted. Nothing can be quite the same for a time, but doing the thing you love to do most, and being immersed in it completely, can help. There's a sense of relief knowing that you can be happy in a time of sorrow, even simply as a distraction. This is what woodworking means to me—it's a beautiful, poetic lifestyle. You can pay homage to your loved ones through your furniture, and you can love your furniture through your daily work.

Our class this last week and a half has been fantastic; and by fantastic I don't mean perfect. We've made mistakes—silly mistakes, physical mistakes, unforeseen mistakes—but mistakes which are key to learning. If you make a mistake at home, you can analyze, watch videos, read books, and try again. But if you make mistakes here, while you're at school, you have the benefit of learning from people who have a great deal of experience, and they can tell you exactly what went wrong, why it went wrong, and, now that it has happened, how to fix it. Hard work is critical in this work, but making blunders and learning why it happened is even more valuable. 

We're just now beginning to see some of the projects taking shape. After a week and a half of joinery and lessons, we now have some end tables, coffee tables, and tool boxes starting to form. We've done some (pre)finishing, surface prep, and a few glue-ups, and it's always encouraging to see our progress along the way. In the meantime, I've been continuing to workshop a small design, perhaps a key cabinet of some sort, which I'm itching to get to work on. We'll see how this and other pieces I'm scheduled to make over the next several weeks progress.

New Class and New Designs

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This week started the "Next Steps in Joinery" class with instructors Tim Rousseau (www.timothyrousseau.com) and John McAlevey (www.johnmcalevey.com). The class is designed as a second step after Peter Korn's Basic Woodworking course, so here we take our designs and our joinery a little further. We introduce new machines, such as the slot mortiser, and, while some of us may branch out, we have a base design for an end table and work from there. The sheer volume of joinery is greater than the usual bench built in the first class, but also we dive deeper into the strengths, weaknesses, and reasoning behind why things are generally done the way they are.

For example, someone asked what the purpose of a haunched tenon was. The answer is two-fold: First, and most simply, it was originally to fill the gap left by a groove. Back before we had fancy router tables and shapers, grooves would be cut using a plow plane, and it was a real pain in the arse to stop a groove. Consequently, when they carried the groove to the end of the board, they needed to fill the gap left behind. So, we filled it with a haunch. But the haunch also serves a second purpose—it widens the tenon and so helps reduce and twist that may occur during the life of the joint. And sometimes little bits, like a 3/4"x1/4" haunch, make a difference.

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And such is our course with this class. A good group we seem to have; everyone excited to be making furniture, asking great questions, and seemingly not ashamed to not know the answers. That's the key to successful classes: asking questions. When I was a student, I threw heaps of questions at my teachers, and not just about my projects. I was and am just so fascinated and in love with this world of woodworking that even now I simply wonder about random aspects and bring it up in conversation during lunch or a free moment. It's just something I love talking about—or, for that matter, writing about.

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For the first three days we've been working on our designs and watching Tim demo certain aspects of joinery. You can see we spent some time in the Messler Gallery on Monday to find some inspiration (and it's shaping up to be a great show, I might add). I've even been jotting some thoughts down in my notebook in hopes to get back to work soon. Take an honest look and see how furniture begins—nothing more than sketches. Don't judge an idea too harshly right away, rather give it time to develop. Draw variations and don't give up on a good idea just because the rough sketch looks off.  As you can see, my sketches aren't perfect, either.

We began milling in ernest today and will continue that through the week. I'm confident they'll turn into wonderful pieces of furniture that they can be proud to have built with their own hands. Being away from the distractions of the world, they can really dive deep into the world I live in. It's a wonderful place to reside. 

A writing (desk) review...

Being back here in Maine and assisting in the workshops has been quite fun. I've gotten to see old teachers and friends, meet new ones, and be back in the cradle of my woodworking creativity. But being around all this woodworking and not partaking has given me the itch, so, naturally, I'm starting a new project. A spec piece of some sorts, but not a large-scale piece. I want to start to push myself in a new aesthetic direction, though I'm not sure what direction that is at the moment. I've been workshopping ideas and starting to bring those design juices to a boil all weekend, but, as Peter Korn reminded over the weekend, I cannot rush the creative process. As I've said, it's difficult for me, and I have many years more experience building than I do designing, so I need to be patient. Again, the mantra of self-patience. Funny how you can tell others something time and time again and often forget to apply it for yourself. Ah well.

Before we look forward and journey through that process together, let's look back at my last piece, a stand up writing desk. From a design perspective, it's nothing groundbreaking. It combines elements of Eastern furniture with Federal influences, and ends up in a good place, I think. The customer was happy, and that was the end goal. From a technical standpoint, which may interest you a bit more, it was loads of fun. It has straight lines, shaped parts, inlays, stringing, and elements of cabinetry. I thoroughly enjoyed building this piece. 

I think over the next few posts we'll discuss some elements that were employed here and how I do them, which may or may not be the way you do them. I use stringing tools, router planes, and hide glue on a regular basis; the latter two being some of the least employed, most versatile tools a furniture maker has. Now go make something for your father, and call it a late father's day present. Doesn't matter what it is, just make something.

Joinery all wrapped up

As the week carried on, I had the pleasure of getting to know the folks I was working with a bit more. Some were just getting into woodworking, or just beginning to dive into it with passion. I love working with people like this because I remember how enthralled I was not all that long ago when I began. I remember the frustration that my dovetail didn't look like the teacher's; the excitement when I made one that did; the elation when I put that first coat of shellac on my first ever project. I still feel that way each time I finish a piece—that's perhaps my favorite part of it all. I love the building and I respect the designing, but I like tasting the cake to make sure that it's good, if you catch my drift.

For the latter half of the week, we focused of the mechanized versions of the joints we had already covered in the bench room. Mortises and half-laps with routers, tenons and dados on the table saw, and, of course, finger joints in place of dovetails. The undistorted truth is that these joints, and this style of woodworking, will give you the same results with less practice than hand work will, and I believe that's why so many people rely on them. It's a "let's get it done and drink a beer over it" mentality, but it's not my mentality. There's something precious in the process, even the processes that challenge me. 

I have quite a difficult relationship with design. Some folks, as James Krenov has said, have an innate understanding of proportion and line, but struggle in the exercise of bringing that thought into reality. I am quite the opposite. Design for me is a mental exercise of mathematics and the manipulation of rules, rather than an intuitive thing. But the great ones of any art are not those who follow the rules, but those who bend and ultimately break them. Woodworking teaches one patience with self above all else, and perhaps in time and with practice I can do something noteworthy. Until then, I'll keep learning. If there is ever a woodworker who tells you they've mastered everything, don't listen to a word they say. 

Happy trails to all the friends I've made this week! Keep doing it as long until it ceases to bring you joy, and then, stop.

Just Joinery This Week

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As David put it, it's not a class about only joinery, but rather a class about doing joinery justice. As such, we have Just Joinery, which is the class I'm assisting David Upfill-Brown, known affectionately by many names, but my personal go to is "The Mad Scientist". Take a look at his website and see his highly sculptural, functional furniture and you'll know why I call him that. 

But this class is not about David. It's about joinery, and two days in we're in full swing. We started in the bench room learning to cut our traditional joints by hand. Half-laps and mortise and tenons the first day. Today, Tuesday, we moved forward to bridles and dovetails. It's been full steam ahead, no doubt, but the students have been excited and hard-working, which goes a long way toward smooth sailing. They key to this craft is perseverance, not luck, not a knack. It takes long days of patience with self and with the material your using, understanding that it has subtleties just the same as you do. Your saw my want to pull to the right, or the wood may want to pull your saw that way. You have to learn to understand these nuances, which takes time and experience. 

This is why I love hand work so much. You form a bond with the material; understand it on a deep and honest level because you are forced to interact with it's intricacies. A table saw will never give you tear out. The helical heads which we are lucky enough to have in the jointers at CFC almost eliminate the need to understand grain direction. If I worked in such a way where the only machines I used were a bandsaw, jointer, thicknesser, and shaper (with helical heads), I could build a great many styles of furniture successfully with virtually no need to understand the medium with which I worked. I could force the wood to do things it doesn't necessarily want to do. And many folks do. But I don't feel satisfied in that kind of work. That's not what I set out to accomplish.

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Being that this is a joinery class and not a hand tool class, we will, of course, cover machine cut joinery. Over the remaining days we will begin to work our way into the machine room to expose the students to all the methods we can to give them the best understanding of joinery as a whole as it exists in the modern world. But starting with hand tools is a necessary step because machines have evolved out of the processes of hand cut joinery. To more completely understand how a table saw or a bandsaw cuts, you need to understand why the teeth do what they do, which is related to the sharpening of handsaws. And the more deeply you understand something, the less chance for abuse their is, limiting the possibility of accidents.

My Workspace

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Honesty is the best policy, I've been told. But it's true. It's true with relationships, both personal and professional. And it's true in this blog. This is a place to share information, honestly, so that we all might learn a thing or two. As such, a fair assessment of my creative space is in order.

It's not pretty. It's not where I want to end up. But it's where I am, and I've been creatively successful there. I have dreams of a bigger, brighter, more beautiful place to work and spend my days. But all buildings need a foundation to be built before any aesthetic work begins. And that is the stage of life in which I currently reside.

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I am, by some definitions, a "hand-tool woodworker." Meaning that, in my daily work, I utilize hand tools for almost all of my work beyond the milling process. Consequently, I don't need many of the large machines that others rely so heavily on—machines such as slot mortisers and shapers. These machines, while wonderfully efficient and a perfectly legitimate way to work, promote a lifestyle that does not sit well with me for two main reasons. The first is to say that all things need to be done as quickly as possible. The end is the goal, not the process. But the furniture itself is not why I became a furniture maker; rather, the process of making the furniture, from design to finish, is what I enjoy most. There is a satisfaction at the culmination of my work, not just in the thing having been conquered. 

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The second reason is that advertisers often promote the machines to non-professionals who then feel they need the best toys to keep up with the "pros." But do they? Brian Boggs started making chairs with just a chisel and spokeshave. In fact, the story is that he didn't even have a chisel, so he put an edge on a slotted screw-driver. The only chair of his I've ever sat in was incomparably the most comfortable chair I've ever put my butt in. 

Mostly, I just enjoy the way I work. I enjoy the romance of the quiet days of planing and sweetening curves with the spokeshave. The sounds of the mallet hitting the chisel and the smell of scraped oak. The glimmer pine has once the ol' #4 has purified its surface. I simply like life more in those moments than when the motors are humming.

I wanted to give you all a glimpse into my working life so that you can recognize that you don't need the perfect space to start working wood. You simply need to find something that fits your situation. This fit mine. My three major milling machines—the bandsaw, the jointer, and the thickness planer—are all within 8 feet of each other. My table saw outfeed table holds my chop saw and its extension beds and doubles as a finishing table. My dust collection is a portable Rikon collector and an air filtration system from Jet. Before I could afford those, it was a dust mask and an open garage door.

We'll discuss all these things in more depth in due time, but for now, go get a chisel and spokeshave and make a chair already, would ya?