Over the years there has been various reason to make things in my shop. Besides the fact that I highly enjoy the process there was almost always something else that pushed me to make something. Often it’s the idea that I can make it better or cheaper or both. Another big one is friends and family asking for something. Gifts are always the most fun projects but seem to be smaller things. I’ve done a dozen or so commissions over the years but that was never a big driver except for the money.
What drives you to make things out of wood? What keeps you going when it gets a bit trudgy like sanding 100 coasters🤪
I’m more curious about what motivates you than anything.
Thanks.
Replies
Period furniture.
Which period? I seem to be drown to mid-century these days.
Seems like a process. I was drawn initially to the Newport collection. That was what got me interested in woodworking. I wanted the pieces. Then after looking at all the different styles (lineage per se?) over the years the art of the Federal style really stuck out. Didn’t care for it at first. It’s really strange, the process of looking at art over time. Kind of like music in some ways.
There are appealing aspects in all styles. For instance, I like the Queen Anne chair back but not the federal back. I dislike Queen Anne legs and Chippendale feet overall.
Good question.
Generally I need something so make it.
It started off with a wife with champagne tastes for nursery furniture on a water budget so I made the kids' beds with a jigsaw and a router. Didn't even have a sander then.
It progressed to making other things she would see in a store, but in a preferred timber or colour, or to a required size or price point.
Sometimes it is for gifts - picture frames, cutting boards, pens, bowls etc.
Last week it was a pan hanger for some new frying pans.
Today I am building a wall with double doors to keep the birds out so they don't poo on the horse feed (for her horses) or the carts (which the horses pull)
Basically I do woodwork because I am a slave to my wife's desires!!
Love it! The wife is the inspiration and receiver of many pieces. I got her diamond earrings and she got me a 3hp PC router for our 1st Christmas dating. Needless to say I married her.
I'm a designer (Industrial Design degree) and creative opportunites is what inspires me. Lately, building things out of "found, discarded or scrapped" material gets me motivated. I've attached 2 examples.
I always hand cut a couple sets of practice dovetails before I start the actual build. One day I looked at my big pile of practice dovetails and decided to make something out of them. I ended up making a simple pencil holder which only consumed three of my practice pieces.
After completing a recent project I had five 6"x6"pieces of 5/4 quarter sawn Cherry left over. I wanted to make a box out of the scrap but I wanted something larger than 6"x6"x6". So rather than "join" the pieces together I thought it would be cool to attach them and leave reveals to highlight the construction. I ended up "stitching" the boards together with curly Maple splines.
My woodworking started with a boast to my daughter that I could make her a bookshelf far better than the Ikea junk she was contemplating; and for less. (I wasn't counting the expenditure on the tools). :-)
Once that triggered it, I became subject to my usual mild obsessive-compulsive thing so couldn't stop woodworking. As with everything else I enjoy doing, the objective of the compulsion became: "get competent".
"Competent" for me meant achieving the three necessary and sufficient conditions: the products of my efforts have to have the required utility, be made to technical "pass" standards of the tradition and be attractive.
Underlying motives have been: pleasure in creating; not being dependent on other suppliers of wood things; using found-timber rather than buying; building a lived-in environment fashioned by me not an anonymous designer of factory stuff; enjoying relationships and talk with other woodworkers; learning for the sake of learning; exploring a mysterious world of human doings until its not so mysterious. And probably some others too deep to become conscious.
Perhaps its of interest to consider possible motives that aren't our own for doing woodwork? In my case:
I've never sold anything of the hundreds of items made but given a lot away (so no making money motive). No money has been saved either, despite the skip-diving and scavenging for timber, as good tools cost a lot!
Although praise for one's efforts can be momentarily pleasurable I much prefer constructive criticism as this tests one's competence, stimulating better efforts; and, for some reason, effusive praise makes me squirm with embarrassment. Nor do I "make for posterity" as once a thing is out of the door I care nothing about its fate as I'm busy with the next piece - although I nevertheless like to think my stuff could last for a century or more if looked after.
I don't feel that fame is a motivator either. I like to show and share but have no desire to set up as "a designer-maker" or a UBoob "expert". More embarrassment! Moreover, in these days of antisocial media, the price of fame is large and often destructive of any joy in what one has sought fame for doing.
Lataxe, heading now for the whittling chair on the porch.
Very thorough answer. thank you!
The money part came to me without trying. My wife was involved in the local parish women's group. She volunteered me 😆 for a booth at the craft show at Christmas time. So I cranked out a bunch of cutting boards and coasters and some small boxes. I sold about half of what I made in couple hours. I was invited back yearly and people the the parish started asking for commissions. I also had a thing going with an interior designer making new cabinet doors for refacing work. That soured when I couldn't deliver fast enough, since I have a day job. Currently I have a gaming table in queue. A 30+year friend says, "please.... I can't stand the furniture store junk." Commissions are hard for me to accept but I can't afford do it for free.
Lately it's weird challenges pop up. My son, "Dad, can you make wooden guitar picks?" Or my wife asking for wooden spoons.
Somehow I figure it out. It truly drives all the other crap in my mind out if I have to concentrate and problem solve.
The hardest request I've ever been asked of me was in '22. Mom was dying of leukemia and she asked me to make her urn. It was weird. Ever time I worked on the project I had trouble seeing properly. 🤔
The first moment that my breath meets my finished form.
I love that you hand draw your designs. I still use pencil and paper also. Excellent work.
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chiwoodworks,
Thanks
I have worked with CAD programs but they seem a little cold. I have a computer on the top of my neck and a printer at the tips of my fingers so I think will just use them for now. You can put a little shading in or wood grain to spiff thing up a bit with graphite.
John
I'm with you howlandwood!
As a designer, I used to do hand renderings (felt tip pens, markers, and Prismacolor pencils). Then I rolled into computer 3D modeling and rendering along with the rest of the design industry. When I retired I ditched the technology and went back to hand drawing. I find it much more enjoyable.
For about 5 years I did freelance hand drawn illustrations for FWW.
It's highly likely I've seen your drawings. I have about 15 years of FWW back issues.
Jkatzowitz,
Top drawer!
I do some colored art work from time to time but I still drawn to graphite on vellum.
I have changed my woodworking focus from furniture to sailboats. How stupid is that, make something out of wood and put it into the water.
But with age come wisdom so I have started just drawing them.
Haven't gotten a splinter or laceration yet.
Rendering: Inspired by Herreshoff's Buzzards Bay 15' on Buzzards Bay Mass.
Drawing can be the easy part sometimes.
Nicely done drawing and I love sort of abstracted map/aerial view backdrop.
Amazing drawings. Perspective drawing has been a weak spot for me. I sketch well enough to get the idea across. I rely on the mechanical drawings on graph paper. Front, top, side drawings. But too often it's a quick sketch and dimensions only.
Joel,
Have you every used the Lawson perspective charts for drawing in 3 dimensional perspective. Kind predates the CAD programs.
I got my first set in the 80's and wore some of them out and got another set. I see them for sale on amazon for over $1,000 cheeper on Craig's. I wonder if they through in a Art Ruling Pen for that price!
I kind of hate these skill of hand drafting being lost. Well thats just the way it goes.
I was Inspired by this method of drawing.
His and Hers dressing room Armoires and bath sinks, Cherry & madrone burl lead mirrors and the sinks and faucets were a gold plated.
I did the perspective drawings for clients with limited amount of dimensions.
John
Having completed a 2-year drafting program in 1990, I’ve never seen or heard of these perspective charts. We just shot 30/60 or 45 degree lines from our front view. It never looked right.
Should be really simple to produce these and just make copies? Only one company had the market on these???
Michael Fortune has a article in issue 220 about using Lawson charts.
I've never used a chart for laying out perspective. I've always just layed out the perspective by setting up a two, or sometimes three, point perspective on a horizon line to suit the size and view point of the subject that I'm drawing. With smaller objects I don't even use vanishing points, I just eyeball it.
sjeff70,
The 8 Lawson charts are only 1 & 2 perspective points at 45, 30/60 and 60/30 angles of perspective.
If you draw something tall like a sail boat it would need to be at least 3 point, for multiple forms 4 or more point and a fisheye 5 points.
I am truly Inspired by wooden sailboat and the Naval Architecture, Engineering and Shipwright who design and build them.
"Ships are the nearest thing to dreams that hands have ever made."
-Robert N. Rose
Still have a ways to go with this drawing.
NIÑA 1928 Fastnet race winner off the Isle of Wright Staysail Schooner designed by Starling Burgess 1927: Spanish for Girl child. Famous racing yacht designer Olin Stephens and partner of Burgess once called it the only yacht that looked great from any angle.
Staysail Schooner, LOA: 70 ft / 21.33 m LOD: 59′ 0″ / 17.98m LWL: 50′ 0″ / 15.24m Beam: 10.50 ft / 3.20 m Draft (max): 7.50 ft / 2.29 m Displacement: 28,000 lb / 12,701 kg Construction: Wood with alternate steel frames Builder: Abeking & Rasmussen first of a handful. Her little sister "Rose of Sharon" and a resent a close replica "Ninetta"
NIÑA's Last Owner(s): Rosemary & David N. Dyche Boat Location: Missing Unknown Lost 1993.
https://classicsailboats.org/portfolio-view/starling-burgess-nina/
All Seven Soul's onboard lost at sea.
"May Their Soul's Rest in Peace"
Jkatzowitz,
Yes, It get easer after a while and we take the training wheels off.
I still use the charts when I need a accurate rendering.
Although they do not accurately represent the world as we see it but still a good tool.
Interesting perspectives, pun included.