Berea Trip Report #3: Nemot00ls meets Adam Cherubini

This is the last Berea trip report, I promise. I had the great opportunity to sit in on a couple of Adam Cherubini's lectures. He's a unique personality and very knowledgeable. His mortise chopping technique was very different from Frank Klaus's, and I think I may try melding the two together.

First, Adam only scribes one line with the grain, not two, and chops to the line. This makes sense. If the mortise chisel is the width of the tennon, what other mark do you need? I know that I have had slight accuracy issues when my mortise marker was not exactly set to the width of my chisel. Which of the two lines to follow? Stick to one or the other? Try to stay in the middle? Getting rid of one of the lines just simplifies the issue.

Secondly, he pares, bevel up, a shallow groove to outline the mortise before chopping. This serves to help further in aligning and registering the chisel. His technique, if I can describe it properly, was to hold the mortise chisel like a pen in one hand, with that elbow flat on the bench for bracing and orientation, and while holding the handle with his other hand, leaning into the chisel with his shoulder. This sounds like serious contortion, but it looked pretty easy. I'm going to try it. If I can get a photograph of myself doing this, I'll post it. I will say that the big broad handle of the pig sticker mortise chisel lent itself to nesting against a shoulder so maybe Adam's contention makes sense that paring with your shoulder leaning into the chisel is the ergonomic way to do it.

My only concern is that a high bench would be the best choice for this technique, but a low bench works best for planing. Does this lead you to a need for two benches?

Berea Woodworking in America Road Trip Report #2

Well, my trip to Berea is starting to look like a hunt for celebrities. It wasn't intended to be like that. Still, since Roy Underhill was here, I took the opportunity to get a photo op. He was very gracious and patient. He is also a very entertaining speaker. Every seminar had some comic relief in it that generally involved a source of inappropriate beverages. In one, he had a giant wooden plane prop with a hidden compartment in it for hiding a liquor bottle. He was also very supportive of the other speakers on stage with him, helping them with camera work and tools and generally playing second fiddle even when he was the big celebrity. I appreciated his maturity in that regard.

He and Frank set up a demo of chopping mortises in which a glass panel was clamped to a board which allowed us to see every stroke of the chisel as it went into the wood. This was displayed overhead via a digital camera. It's interesting to note that Frank's method of chopping a mortise was very different from Adam Cherubini's, which I will explore in my next installment. Frank just started whacking a little inboard of the top of the line and worked his way down to near the bottom line. He didn't drive in deep, but made several passes. On each pass, he started and finished a little closer to the end line until he finished right on the line. He managed to lever out chips as he went and kept a relatively flat bottom. I've been starting in the middle and working my way to the ends. I seem to always get a big hump in the middle which I have to work to lever out.

Berea Woodworking in America #1

As promised to my woodworking friends on Wood Central, here is the first installment of my trip report about the Woodworking in America conference in Berea, KY. My first experience was running into Ellis as he walked in to the registration desk. I recognized him immediately, though he had no idea who I was. Like a star-struck groupie, I grabbed him and forced an unfortunate bystander to take our picture together. I was probably more thrilled than either Ellis or the other poor schmuck. But, hey, it's all about me, right?

My plan for this convention was to learn as much about cutting dovetails as possible and to that end I managed to attend three seminars about dovetails. Frank Klaus put on a great demonstration of the pins first method. I've always been a tails first kind of guy, but one look at his techniques and I'm a convert. I'll post a demonstration on the blog, here soon.

More updates coming.....crossing paths with St. Roy, Adam and more.

Hand Chopping Mortises

It's not that hard to hand chop mortises. My first efforts were pretty crude, but by now, I can chop a reasonably precise mortise without destroying a lot of wood. There are several ways to approach the task. Any way you approach it, you need to first mark the mortise. I suggest a mortising gauge which has two marking pins or wheels. This will definitely save you a lot of inaccuracies in marking the sides. I have been measuring the top and bottom mark, but anytime you measure, you stand a chance of introducing error. If possible, use the same marking gauge for laying out the top of your mortise that you used for laying out the corresponding dimension of your tenon.

The next step is to get the wood out. Here's where the choices come in. One approach is to drill out as much as possible and then clean up with a chisel. I've done this in the picture below. Note the use of squares to help keep the drill vertical. Also, the bench pup from Lee Valley helps keep the workpiece steady on the workbench. This method is relatively easy, but I find it hard to keep the drill holes exactly in line and I find the chisel slips around as I try to clean out the wood, resulting in a not-so-precise mortise. This method also gives me a chance to use my Buck Rogers brace, so that's one point in it's favor.


The next approach is to take a mortise chisel and lay it in the scribe marks and start whaling away. Start in the middle and work toward one end, then turn the chisel around and work to the other end. You will find that you are able to drive deeper and deeper, the further from your initial cut, because you are creating more room to push the excess fibers into as you drive them out of the way. Thus, the bottom of your mortise has a distinct hump in the middle which must be cleaned out. Also, I have severely damaged the wood using this technique. The wood can shear along the grain and blow out the top of the piece if you are working with small parts. My opinion is that this technique is best used for rough construction.

Lastly, here is my preferred method. Drill one hole near the middle of the mortise, registered against one mortise cheek mark, and keep this mark as the reference mark throughout. Then, take the mortise chisel and carefully chop toward one end. The hole allows the fibers to easily move out of the way. Turn the chisel around and chop to the other end. Keep the chisel square to the scribe marks and registered against the reference mark. A little paring and cleaning of the bottom and the mortise is done.

My next article will discuss paring and bottoming the mortise to the required depth.

Mortise and Tenons and Sawing, OH MY!

After a substantial hiatus, I am back in the workshop again. The delays to my continuing work on this massive nested tables project started with being drafted by the boss to remodel my basement and then were topped off by me falling down the stairs and breaking my ankle. But all is reasonably well now, so off we go again on the project at hand.

It's tenon cutting time! This project is all about mortise and tenon joints. I counted them up and there are (I think) 68 mortise and tenon joints. I intend to cut them all by hand.

You can see my tenon cutting set up below. From the work on my prototype, it became apparent that marking all those tenon joints with a square and a marking knife would take a lifetime. The secret to speeding up the layout process is to have three marking gauges, pre-set to the depth, the width and the length of the mortise. Scribing the layout becomes much quicker. The 2 keys to accuracy are to be sure that all the rails are exactly the same dimensions, since the marking gauges depend on the piece for accuracy and to keep the gauges set without changing, throughout the project. If you try to reset your gauge, no matter how careful you are, you will inevitably introduce error. Ask me how I know this.

As you can see below, I have a knife gauge for cross grain work, a pin gauge for with-grain work and a mortise gauge, for making the two marks of the width of the tenon.


After scribing all the lines for a tenon, it is necessary to saw them with extreme precision. To accomplish this, you must be able to guide the saw against at least two scribe marks at all times. This becomes a very Zen moment as you adsorb the visual image of the saw tracking the scribe line in one plane while simultaneously adsorbing the image of the saw tracking in the other plane. It is essential to be completely in the moment and not let your brain run through random thoughts which will redirect your concentration. My thoughts invariably drift into a running monologue of describing what I am doing, as if I am writing my actions up for the blog (such is the fate of a woodworking blogger, I guess). This is a sure way to drift off track. Don't think about what you're doing, just do it!

I always start a cut by tracking the top of the tenon scribe mark, simultaneously with one side mark until I have cut across the whole tenon, simultaneously reaching the bottom of the tenon, but not down into the other side. Then I flip the piece over and cut tracking across the top and the other side until I have cut across the whole tenon, simultaneously reaching the bottom of the tenon, but not down into the other side. Then I come down vertically, using the kerf as a saw guide.

The last step is to cut the shoulder of the tenon, tracking the saw much the same way.

The saw must be held very loosely, so that you won't inadvertently use your muscles to mis-guide it. The traditional image of how tight to hold your saw is to imagine you are holding a baby bird. You don't want to crush it, but you don't want to let it get away.

This takes a lot of practice. Ask me how I know.

The next entry will be all about hand chopping mortises.

Old San Antone

One of these days I'll get back to real woodworking, but I was forced by family pressure to go on vacation. We toured San Antonio and the nearby Central Texas Hill Country. San Antonio is most famous for the Alamo, the Riverwalk area and the old Missions. It did not disappoint. Out in the Hill Country, we were most impressed by a little town called Fredricksburg, which is a must see. It is full of very high class craft shops, German restaurants and notably, several museums dedicated to the war in the Pacific in WWII. It turns out that Fredricksburg is the home of Admiral Nimitz, and the local City Fathers play that up to the max.


Here's SWMBO #1 and 2 standing on one of the bridges on the Riverwalk. This one is now called the J. Lo. bridge because a scene of Jennifer Lopez was shot here for the movie "Selena".



Below is a shot of one of the magnificent carved doors at one of the Missions in San Antone. These missions were built in the late 1600's and early 1700's. I have no idea if this door is original or a late replacement.


And last, this is a shot of one of the unusual hinges they used on all their doors at the missions. You can see it is made from two rods bent over each other, pushed through a hole in the door frame and bent back like a brass split pin in a binder. I have no idea why this is a good way to build a hinge. Perhaps because it doesn't require screws, which might have been difficult to make in a frontier environment.

Tour of Frank Miller Lumber Mill

In a departure from my current efforts on the nesting tables, I took a break to go up to Union, Indiana and tour the Frank Miller Lumber Company. The trip was organized by my new friend Jennifer whom I met at www.woodcentral.com. If you are not tuned in to the scene at Wood Central, you are missing out on a great resource. So go there and start reading the bulletin boards and the articles. You'll learn a lot.

The tour was a lot of fun for us engineery types. I always like to go into someone else's plant and see what they do. The saw mill is all about quarter sawn white oak. Over 80% of what they produce is quarter sawn white oak. They have a little red oak and a little mahogany and not much else. Their primary customer, it turns out, is the Stickley Company, so most of this pretty quarter sawn white oak with all its ray flecks is turning in to that fine Arts & Crafts furniture that you see at the most expensive furniture stores.



The band saw that is their primary saw is awsome. It is highly automated and analyzes each log to get the most lumber out of it. They also recover and use essentially all of the byproducts. Did I mention it's highly automated? They sell the bark for mulch, they burn the sawdust to make steam for their kilns, they ship chips to a papermill. There's just not much that goes to waste.

The one thing that impressed me most was that all sharpening of the big bandsaw blades is by hand. They have a team of very specialized craftsmen that do nothing but sharpen the band saws.

Hand Planes for Jointing and Smoothing Table Tops - Nested Tables 8

This Lee Valley Bevel Up Smooth Plane is just what the Dr. ordered for smoothing table tops. This Mahogany that I'm working with has multiple reversing grain and is very subject to tear out. This required putting a steeply pitched micro-bevel on my blade, so that the pitch is about 60°. The bevel-up system allows you to modify the angle of the cutter very easily. That's why I love this plane. I can use it with a very low angle blade and turn it on it's side for shooting end grain or put in a high angle blade for smoothing gnarly grain. In the past, I've kept an assortment of antique Stanley hand planes for this type of work. They still have uses, but a modern, redesigned hand plane has captured a place in my workshop.


You can see below that the excellent adjustment features of the plain allow for some pretty precise plaining. I'm getting a legitimate 1.5 thousandth inch shaving. There is excellent depth adjustment, lateral adjustment and throat opening adjustment. This is just a great plane! I'm thinking of selling a few of my Stanley hand planes and some of my woodies as well.


Finishing up with a Stanley #81 scraper. There was still some final smoothing required, so I turned to this scraper. I've had this thing in my basement for a decade and never used it. The blade is a modern scraper that I got from Rockler. I had to draw a burr on the end, which I don't normally do, since the normal mode d'employ is to use the broad edge. This only took a few moments.


As you can see, it produced some nice fluffy shavings. I attempted to measure their thickness also, but they were too fragile. The final results was a nicely smoothed table top.

This mahogany that I'm working with looks smooth and simple at first glance, but when I started working with it, I realized it has some incredible complexity, on a small scale, throughout the entire piece. I wetted the piece down with mineral spirits and it looks like there's going to be some real three dimensional chatoyance in there. It almost looks holographic. I'm hoping....

Table Saw, Jig Saw and Miter Saw -- Nested Tables 7

Today was all about finishing off the bulk ripping and cross cutting. You can see first I had to cut some shorts off of a very large piece of Mahogany. This piece is huge. It's about 12" by 7/8ths by about 9 ft. long. This is very awkward to crosscut with a table saw. I always get out my jig saw in cases like this. You can see the table saw is very useful as a workbench, if nothing else.

The small stiles that are the indicative feature that makes the project look like craftsman style all come from my horde of 1/2 by 3/4" rippings. You can see why I have to include this design element into the piece. I have tons of this stuff to get rid of.


Now a bunch of careful crosscutting with my antique Langdon Miter saw and it's all coming together. This thing rates high on the gizmosity scale and it actually works very well.



And here's the final results: All of the bulk ripping of the linear pieces. Note: It is essential to keep all the pieces organized. With all the bulk pieces for three tables at once, it's easy to get them intermingled. Now it's time for jointing the tops. That's tomorrow's chore.

Woodworking Plans and CAD -- Nesting Tables 6

Today was spent getting my Woodworking Plans finalized with ViaCAD. I have to say, the learning curve has been steep, but I'm gradually getting the hang of ViaCAD. Switching from AutoCAD has not been easy. All of the commands are in different locations and there is just a huge difference in the software design approach. I can't say yet whether ViaCAD is less good than AutoCAD or what. I'm still struggling to remember where all the commands are located.

ViaCAD has some good points. 1) I have it. 2) It was cheap. 3) It does the job, and 4) It has full 3-D rendering capability, which I can't do yet.

Here is the front view of my nesting table design. It fits several criteria: 1) It efficiently uses the Mahogany shorts that I want to use up, 2) I can build it with my current tooling and skills and 3) My customer seems to like it.



Also on today's task list is finishing the prototype nesting tables that I built from scraps. I'm going to stain them, distress them and finish them with semi-gloss urethane. My distressing technique will be to roll a chunk of concrete over the surfaces, sand down the corners slightly and spritz some droplets of black spray paint over the top. This system of furniture distressing has worked well on other projects, so I have every reason to believe it will work out well here. I'll show Pics when they are done.

Ripping, Pocket Screws and CAD - Nested Tables 5

This weekend was occupied by a number of arcane tasks related to the nested tables project.

First, having previously planed the mahogany shorts that I wanted to use for table legs, it was a simple matter to run them through my tablesaw. The width of the shorts was just wide enough to make 4 legs each, so at the end of the process, I had all 12 legs.

Unfortunately, I realized that the material I had available for the longest legs was just about 1 1/2 inches too short. Not to worry, I will just have to modify the design slightly.

Fortunately, I was experimenting with the prototype tables. As I mentioned previously, the larger prototype table has no rail in the front and is therefore too flexible. I think I may have solved this problem with pocket screws. I've never used my new Kreg pocket screw kit until this afternoon, but it seems to have worked very well. The front legs of the table are much more stable.

The advantage to the no front rail system is that the stack up from one nested table to the next is much less, and thus I should be able to lower the height of my highest table enough to use the legs cut from the shorts, rather than cut up any of my longer pieces, which I want to save for other projects. For this to make any sense to you, the reader, you should take a look at the picture of the prototype tables.

Now, it's back to the CAD software to lay out the new design concept with the shorter legs. I'm using a CAD package called ViaCAD. I'm used to AutoCAD from work, but the ViaCAD got good reviews and it's not expensive. It's interface is very different from AutoCAD, so I'm still in my learning curve. I'll report back someday whether or not it's a good CAD package.

The other task was to apply a conditioner of dilute BLO on the prototypes. I decided they turned out so well I should stain and finish them. Since they are a mixture of scrap Ponderosa pine, white pine and SYP, they will probably take stain very inconsistently, so a coat of conditioner to prep them for staining seemed in order. We 'll see how it works out.

Prototype Using All Hand Tools - Nesting Tables 4

Here are the two prototype tables I built from scraps. They look pretty good, but there are some flaws in each one. The larger table doesn't have a front rail. I did this first because "Nahm's" plans are this way and second because it minimizes the stack up as you build each table over the next.

The bad part is that the table is too weak. I'm not going to build my final version this way. I will have rails all around, supporting the top and stiffening the legs. The front of the two larger tables, by the nature of the system, can't have any stretchers or the tables won't nest. Leaving out the rail is just too much for the integrity of the structure.

The next thing to investigate is how to join the top to the frame. In the smaller table, I used through tenons, right through the top, with wedges. This is without a doubt a very strong joint, and the table top will not come off, ever. Unfortunately, it looks ugly.

The next table has countersunk screws with wooden plugs. This looks better, but just doesn't seem strong enough, especially combined with the no-rail system. The plugs, while better looking than the through tennons, don't look all that great. I think in the final version I will use pocket screws or figure eights.

There were a few other learnings from the prototypes:
1. Chopping all those tiny mortises by hand was not too hard or time consuming, but

2. Sawing all those tiny tenons was a royal pain. The layout was very time consuming and subject to error. Scribing all those lines on so many tiny tennons was just laborius. The sawing was also tedious. Hand sawing in such fine detail is no easy task. I think I may cut these tennons with a dado attachment on my table saw.

3. All those little stiles really did a lot to stiffen up the piece. They are very functional as well as decorative.

Truing Stock With Hand Planes - Nested Tables 3

This weekend was all about truing my stock for the nested tables. I have some fine mahogany shorts that are going to be perfect for the legs of my tables. They are just a little more than 6/4ths, which is just enough to true the faces. They are just wide enough to get 4 legs out of each board. These are part of the hoard of mahogany I got from a cabinetmaker who was going out of business. He was a victim of the mortgage crises.



In the first pic, you can see me jointing the first board with my KK-6. This is a crappy plane. It's frog is decidedly inferior and is very fussy to adjust. I swear I'm going to use it for a boat anchor and get a Lie Nielsen or at least a Stanley Bedrock. Nevertheless, after fussing around with it, I got it adjusted sufficiently to get a good reference edge.



In the second picture you can see me facing the piece. Note the handy planing stop. This is a piece of plywood screwed to a scrap of white oak that is griped in my vice. The stop can be tilted up or down for any thickness of wood and gives square support across my entire workbench. This idea came out of Chris Schwarz's book on workbenches from Popular Woodworking.

If you look closely, you can see my traditional jointer's mark on the reference edge (pointing the wrong way, unfortunately).



Next, I'm using my fancy artistic winding sticks, which are really two pieces of aluminum angle from the Orange Borg, artistically painted with Oleum de Ruste. Actually, extruded aluminum angle is dam straight and makes a fine winding stick and straight edge. It's also extremely cheap.

Finally, you can see my little Stanley #4 smoothing plane finishing off the piece. I have three more pieces of stock to prepare for my legs, then I will hold a mass ripping event and rip all twelve legs in one session.

Hand Chopping Mortises, Nested Tables 2

The nested table project is all about mortise and tenon joints. I've never hand chopped mortises before, so step one was to get a good mortise chisel. I had a couple of sash mortise chisels, but I figured out the hard way that they weren't the best style. The traditional pig-sticker mortise chisle works better, at least for me. The elliptical handle is just more intuitive for keeping longitudinal alignment. I have a 1/4" Marples that I got off E-Bay and a 3/8" Ray Iles from Tools for Working wood. The Ray Iles is a little heavier duty, but both are workable.

It's a good thing that I started on a prototype made from scrap, because there is certainly a learning curve. Look at the mortise in the picture. The wood fibers have blown out the end of the piece. I've never seen wood blow out quite like that. It's good to have this happen on the prototype, not on my expensive mahogany. The solution to this problem was to keep the mortise farther away from the end of the piece and be a little gentler when chopping in.

After several trials, I ultimately got to the point that I could chop the mortises fairly precisely. I scribed a depth line on the side of the chisel with a vibratory marker so that I could keep depth consistent. It is also important to sharpen every face of the chisel since every arris is a cutting edge.

Saga of the Nested Tables, part 1

My customer (my daughter) wants me to build a set of nested end tables. After much negotiation we agreed on mahogany as a building material and a design similar to the one pictured. This is the target. We will see how close the final product matches the target.

We looked at plans from several sources, including even buying a set of plans from The New Yankee Workshop ("Nahm"). I even received a loan of a book of plans from my new friend Ron (who shall otherwise remain anonymous), who knew me only from chatting at WoodCentral.com. He actually mailed me his book!

After amalgamating the dimensions and joinery concepts from these sources, I came up with what I thought was a good overall joinery strategy and approximate dimensions. However, knowing that my fatherhood was on the line, I figured I needed to make a prototype out of scraps, just to be sure my skills were up to snuff. Here is what I came up with. How I got here is the subject of the next few posts.

Miter Saw Handle Repair

I bought a nice miter saw off E-Bay, but when it got here, it looked like someone at UPS ran over it with a fork truck. The blade was still reasonably good, so I decided I would re-make the handle.

Step one was to piece the old handle back together. Then I traced it on a nice piece of scrap cherry that I happened to have around the shop.

Careful sawing with my turning saw, made from plans from "Tools for Working Wood" and then a lot of rasping with my Nicholson wood rasp resulted in a pretty good basic shape.

Next, a careful cut for the blade with a little tennon saw and some carefully drilled holes for the screws finished up the whole thing. I attempted to drill out a hole for the medallion with a spade bit that I had. This wasn't the best choice. A Forstner bit would have worked better. Anyway, it saws well and fits into my Langdon miter box like it was made for the job, which it was.

Rip Saw Handle Repair

I have a nice Bishop thumb-hole rip saw that I picked up for almost nothing. However, it had a severe problem with the handle. A big part of the horn was missing. Typically, I would just throw such a saw out and get another one at a local garage sale, but I decided to try a rescue.

I mixed up a batch of two part epoxy and threw in some mahogany wood dye that I happened to have on hand. I then made up a quick form around the remains of the handle horn and poured in the epoxy. What came out was pretty crude, but after extensive rasping, the final results was at least functional, if not beautiful.

The epoxy is very shapable, i.e. easy to work. I'm glad I rescued the saw, since I'm partial to Bishop Saws, which were made right here in Cincinnati.

This Old Stanley #5C is One of My Favorite Hand Planes

There are certain critical things about a plane that make it functional, and other features are just not that important.

This old Stanley #5c was given to me by a well meaning friend who knew that I liked old tools. This monstrosity was the worst ball of rust I'd ever seen when I got it. The tote was loose and in two pieces. The blade was unspeakably dull and misshapen. However, two things made me attempt to restore it. One, it was a gift and my friend expected me to do something with it. Two, the blade and tote had USVB stamped into them. I have no idea what USVB means, but it was interesting.


After a solid three day weekend of derusting, grinding, sharpening and gluing the handle back together, the final result wasn't too bad. It will never win a beauty prize. It has noticeable pitting all over it. But the bottom is flat, the blade beds well and it makes a good roughing plane. I find that I use it all the time when rough-truing stock. It's set to be almost as coarse as a scrub plane and can remove a lot of wood in a hurry. It just goes to show, looks can be deceiving.

Planing and Trueing With Hand Tools

Today's task was to take some of the split maple that has been "curing" in my basement and turn it from firewood to fine spalted maple.


This is literally some pieces of firewood that I purposefully left outside for a while and then brought in for final air drying, hopefully to end up with some fine spalted patterns. The challenge is to take this highly irregular piece of vegetable matter which was formed with little consideration to my needs and impose retangularity upon it. Oh, and I have no planer or jointer.


Task one was to strip off the bark with a drawknife. This was quickly and easily done. The bark fell off in a few large sheets.


Next I decided to rip the edges to some semblance of regularity. Fortunately, I have a fine Bosch Jigsaw, model 1591 EVS. This one has a barrel grip, not the handle grip. I was successful in ripping one side reasonably straight, and then hit it with my foreplane to bring it into some sort of precision trueness, which I could use as a reference edge.

Next step was to roughly true one face with my ECE scrub plane. This was quickly done, and now having a face that was within Grand Canyon precision of being flat, I was able to scribe a line from the reference edge to the opposite edge and joint it roughly down to the line.

Now, having a piece that would lay flat on the bench and could be gripped firmly, I was in a position to plane off the last face, which was extremely rough and at an odd angle to the reference face. You can see from the picture that I am using a couple of Lee Valley bench pups. These are great and you need to get a pair. I also have the board wedged against a planing stop which consists of a piece of scrap plywood screwed to a scrap of oak board which can be gripped in the bench vise. My choice at this point was my trusty Stanley #5C. This plane is very rough. It's had a hard life. It is, however, perfectly suitable for coarse flattening. My blade is strongly cambered for deep cuts and the throat is very wide for passing thick chips.

This plane worked well and I followed it with my all woodie Jack plane, an antique that I picked up on E-Bay, but that makes a finer cut. By now, I'm ready to flip the other face up and smooth it some more. A few minutes of this and the piece is now 1" thick and relatively square. I'll true it up further when I'm ready to use it in a project.

Meanwhile, I have a basement full of this "firewood" that I've got to true up.

Manifesto

I've been told that you should start your blog with a manifesto that explains your philosophy or your purpose. I thought about writing "I'm just here to have a good time playing in my woodshop", but I figured I should come up with something more pedantic that essentially says the same thing, so here goes.

The New Arts and Crafts Movement

The original Arts and Crafts movement had a strong element of socialism in it. It was an attempt to improve the lives of the masses by eliminating the capitalists and factories. The founders especially found fault with division of labor and romanticized the individual craftsman. As Ruskin said 'It is not truly speaking, the labour that is divided, but the men: - divided into mere segments of men - broken into small fragments and crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail.'

Thus, the original Arts and Crafts movement was a social movement. It was also a backwards looking reaction to the excesses of the industrial revolution. Ruskin, Morris and others romanticized the Middle Ages with its emphasis on Guilds. The idea of the designer and the craftsman united into one person was appealing to them. They did not like the concept of the designer as an elite industrial engineer and the worker as a limited, truncated troglodyte serving a machine. Ruskin’s popular book, The Stones of Venice (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964, c1960, original credo of the Arts and Crafts Movement), makes this point (although the book is almost unreadable to the modern eye. Victorian writers wrote in a florid style that is just too long winded before ever getting to the point).

Here in the 21^st century, all of that backward looking romanticism is long dead. The Middle Ages are not romanticized any more, but recognized as dirty, unhealthy, intellectually straight jacketed and socially frozen. The impracticality of returning to a small shop guild system is recognized, but fortunately, the ills of industrial revolution have been more or less ameliorated. Labor is not as brutally exploited and workers have more of a say in the activities of the factory floor.

However, life is not completely wonderful here in the technological vastness of the future. The relentless onslaught of multimedia manipulation from our mercantile overlords demands that we work at meaningless jobs for money that we squander on meaningless tech toys in the belief that this makes us happy. Well, it doesn’t. It just keeps us satiated so we will prime the pump and make the overlords richer. Sorry to sound overly Socialist here, but that's just the way it is.

The juggernaut of the advertising machine will continue to have most people completely beguiled and trapped in the soft chains of a software life. However, each individual can choose to manage his or her life differently. When the modern worker comes home to a MacMansion, popped up in a MacSubdivision, surrounded by MacRestaurants and MacMalls, he or she can make a decision whether to pop in a CD, turn on the TV, throw in a DVD, fire up the Play Station, read the MacNews on the MacNet, chat with virtual friends about their virtual life in a virtual world, or perhaps, make an alternate individual decision and do something creative and uplifting.

The New Arts and Crafts Movement is not a social movement, but an individual movement. The idea that the designer and the worker can be united into one individual is not dead. The idea that each individual can devise suitable work methods based on his or her own needs and not what Home Depot or Sears wants to sell is not dead. It is not a social movement but an individual movement.

You and I make the decision what we do with all that leisure time that the technological revolution has supposedly given to us. We decide what to buy with our paycheck and to what degree we are enslaved by our ties to the mercantile dictatorship. Even though we would like to think that we are different from the serfs of the Middle Ages and have freedom, we are not and we do not. We just have a slightly longer leash. What we do with that leash makes all the difference.

Which means, I'm just here to have a good time playing in my woodshop.