I'm a process-oriented person. I'm not a product oriented person.
I mean the product is important in the end, but what I love about this work is the process of getting it together?
And that process involves making jigs and
sharpening your tools and
all of the all of the activities that go into the process along the way.
I started learning everything on machine tools
so, umm
Just learning to use a table saw and a jointer you know there's a lot of there's a lot of
hand skill goes into properly using a jointer. You don't just push a board across a jointer
you apply a lot of English to the board to make it work properly
And that took a while that took a while to master
Of course it helps to have a jointer that's perfectly set up
But even then you can you can put a crown or a cup in a board by how you
Hold your hands as you push the board across the jointer
The table saw does tend to be the center of the modern shop
I'd say that I do 50% of my mortise or my Tenons on a table saw in 50% of my tenons
With a handsaw. It just depends on how many I'm doing and the nature of the work
But I will say this regarding saws, I've said for years that if they wrote a law
That said you could only have one kind of saw in your shop. I would have a good bandsaw
Because a good bandsaw properly set up can do all the joinery that a table saw can do plus cut curves
You might notice I've got two bandsaws, I've got
This one here four with a quarter-inch blade in it for all kinds of finer work
And I've got the one in back with an inch blade in it for the resawing and heavy-duty work
and and
Both of them are justified even in a small shop like this.
Istill rely on machines to make jobs go faster my
ethic is
That whenever a machine doesn't compromise the design
the ultimate design
Or the ultimate finish that you want
I'll use a machine tool. It's just faster. It's just it just is I'm not a purist
About any of these things whatever whatever works.
My first piece of advice to
Someone a novice would be to take the time to learn the hand tools
And then then you know when you can
Rely on a machine tool to speed the process up
But you don't have to ever compromise your design
According to what only a machine tool can accomplish
There are so many situations where
In the end the only the only real solution to a problem is
The deft use of a hand tool
My favorite thing to do is to use a spokeshave
To shave a piece of wood with a spokeshave
That's that's one of the most satisfying. It's it's physically satisfying. It's it's sensual
You get a physical you get physical pleasure out of it
Sharpening it
That's that's my favorite hand tool thing to do and then of course working on a lathe is is
My favorite machine tool thing to do
As you can see from looking around now, I've got a lot of Powermatic tools
That's partly because I've had a relationship with paramedic over the over the past
7 or 10 years, I guess
This lathe is better than any lathe I've ever had before I've had a couple of old lathes
But this one is
far superior
It's almost a cliche at this point I let the wood tell me what it wants to be
because I'll put something in the lathe and I may have a preconceived notion of
what I what I'm going to turn out of it and frequently I
Accomplished what I set out to do, but just as frequently the wood will
take on a shape.
I mean it's I'm not attributing some kind of mystical life to a piece of dead wood but
But just in in cutting the wood and taking note of the features in the wood
The wood will define a form that it wants to look that it looks best in that is not what you initially had in mind
I was a while to come to carving
I remember the first the first carving I ever did I was I was selling
Chairs fairly simple Queen and chairs to a
a couple of old German brothers up in Nashville that that had a showroom for
traditional furniture and
One day they said can you do any carving and I said well, I don't know let's give it a try
They gave me a foot blank for a ball and claw foot and and said, and an example to copy and
Said come back with this
see what you can do and
So I bought some carving tools. I bought a set of carving tools and
Started working on it, and I took it back to the one of the old German brothers, and he looked at and he said hmm
not enough tools
That's so that that was
That was my introduction to to old-world mentorship
If you can it all afford it
Take as many of the classes that are available today
that you can take
Because a week's worth of instruction with a master can be worth up to a year's worth of trial and error there's
Dozens and dozens of schools of woodworking and lots of opportunities to learn
Making something that you designed yourself is a thrilling and very daunting process
I mean when you're reproducing something that's acknowledged to be excellent
You don't have to worry about whether your customer is ultimately gonna like what you've done
But when you're making an original design piece
you've got to you've got to have the confidence that that your vision is ultimately going to be appreciated and
That's that's much more daunting to me
It's easy to make a piece that's not everything it ought to be and
Sometimes you only know when you're finished and you say to yourself.
I should have done this and that and it took me a while to learn not to point that out to my customers
(laughing)
They would they would say how pleased they were and I'd say yeah,
But you know if if I'd only done this and that and they go oh
Yeah
The process of making an original design piece of furniture is often very
Very involved
And you have to dream up new ways of doing things which is
Fantastic to come up with a solution to a problem
It's great to go to bed
Wondering how in the world
You're going to do what you what you've envisioned and waking up in the morning and having solved the problem in your sleep
Makes you want to get out to the shop right away