carpentry

Producing Good Work

One of the more difficult things to do is to explain to others what it is, exactly, that we do.  As a newcomer to homesteading, this is especially difficult.  Most people are not comfortable with the vaguely nuanced answers that sometimes come with homesteading.

“I’m a farmer…”, you might begin.

But, there’s more.  What about the carpentry?  the mechanics, the weather, the forest, the land?  What about the canning and the cooking?  What about the slaughter and the butchery?  It takes a lot of work to eat; more than most realize.

“I’m a homesteader…” you usually end up saying.

But that is ambiguous and what about the money?  Perhaps the issue and the real question is money: people want to know what you do to earn your living.

Nowadays the new homestead is demanding some demolition: tearing out drywall and knocking down walls.  Unscrewing screws and pulling up nails; there’s the cleaning up and the three dumpsters (so far).

The answer was given while watching video: “I earn my living by doing good work.”

My Own Mistakes

I continue to be taught by my tools and the wood and earth that I now work with on a day to day basis.  It is a wonder how much a table saw can teach us if only we listen.  My bandsaw lays in waiting for the lesson to be taught.  A piece of lumber is a particularly harsh professor.  Lacquer is a nun with a ruler.

The oak that I saw lures me into the comfort of knowledge only to take it away again, leaving me in the darkness of ignorance; but there is always a light at the end of that educational tunnel.  The maple slabs never let me slack nor do they allow me to rest my weary head.  I lay my well-worn sander on them only to find a new lesson.

My jack plane is a peculiar teacher.  The razor sharp iron lures me into comfort and laughs at me again and again as its paper thin slices suddenly turn to chunks of precious wood.  I cry and it offers no solace and so I am angered and it is entertained.

My shop lays in wait at night for me to wake and try my luck again at learning a trade that I thought I knew.  It proves me wrong and I still fight.  There is no “first place” or empathy; there is no participation points.  I am learning from the best teacher that I know of: my own mistakes; and teach they will, one way or another as long as I keep trying.

Obsolete Aptitudes

wooden plane

 

Just recently I was given three wooden hand planes ranging in size from a 9”-app. 16”. Since then I have been learning to use these “obsolete” tools in the shop. I have rubbed and polished the irons and waxed the soles. I’ve spent time practicing setting up the irons for just the right whoosh sound when I run the planes over the edges of the wood. In the process, I’ve learned to “read” the direction of wood grain and to feel if the irons are sharp and in place. I have learned to recognize characteristics of both the tools I am using and the wood that I am working. My education continues.

 

I’ve gotten better in the past weeks and it has cost me a lot of wood shavings and rough edges. But, progress is being made. I am told and hear that such things are obsolete, but I disagree. In fact, I would argue that such aptitudes are necessary to understanding not only woodworking, but also what it is that makes us human. The answers that I find in these old “outdated” wooden wood planes do not come easily, but every one of them are applicable. The questions answered by such tools are far beyond a push of a button or trigger on one of my electric tools and at the same time apply equally to both the old wooden planes and the electric planers and table saws that I use daily.

 

I watch my hands as I place them gingerly on the well-worn wood of the planes and feel the weight and the balance of the tool. I listen to the sounds the irons make as I hope for a smooth glide but often get the chatter of a miss-set or unsharpened blade. Where I learn to listen to one tool, I learn to coax the other. Sometimes I remind myself that I can easily joint an edge with a machine, but then I make obsolete something too important to forget.

 

Such experiences make for a lonely life sometimes, surrounded by modern humans and our mechanical aptitudes, but I’m not sure that convenience and modern “necessities” are worth the cost of losing ancient knowledge and know-how. Anyway, as I begin to look around, I’m not so sure how alone I am in my obsolescence.

 

It is hard to describe and perhaps even harder to understand, but watching the shavings pour out of the top of the planer when I do get it right is a memory that is seldom made when working with modern tools. I am asked, “Why bother!?” and to that question I must answer, “To ask that is to not understand the answer.” The experience is not mystical, but is necessary. It is not obsolete, but essential.