I have subscribed to Fine Woodwokring for four years and built my shop with your guidance. Thanks to my tech savy son I am able to listen to your podcast as I work in my shop. Hearing you speak as I work on wood and set-ups has been quite delightful. It is like I have friends with me as I work. So I begin to wonder.
Now that I have a sharp cabinet scraper for the first time and now that I have mirror sharp cutting tools, I wonder what you all know about the history of this. Obviously the internet did not transfer excellence. Obviously people did not have scary-sharp sandpaper or diamond hones or such high quality steel. I remain curious about those who developed a flat piece of wood that was dried, beautiful and crafted smooth and flat. How did anyone discover how to do that?
ThomasD
Replies
Woodworking 101
This sounds philosophical - I'm out ! Calling Ralph - need help !
SA
We're not as stupid as some would have you believe
Thomas:
Necessity is the mother of invention and want is it's father. Though there seems to be a serious dummying down taking effect (comes from having everything you need and want without having to work to get it), mankind is generally quite bright. We are tool makers and users by design (that's right design, not some stupid random chance theory that is not at all supported by real science). Think about everything mankind has crafted over the last 5,000 years of human history. Does it really make sense that we walked around on this planet for several hundred thousand years and then out of nowhere someone decides it's time to invent language, tools, and gadgets? Please. We were put here with brains fully developed and eager to make stuff. Just watch some preschool children for awhile. They explore their environment like crazy and "discover" all kinds of ways to do things to get their hands on whatever their little brains decide they want.
Now , stop wasting your time worrying about who originally came up with what and go make something. Be the guy.
gdblake
gdblake: I recently retired as a community college educator in early childhood. I have watched preschoolers for over 40 years. I have a website tomdrummond.com devoted to just what you ask that I do.
However, I do have wonderings like I posted. I think of the heritage often as I am in my shop making something every day. I guess I should go to a library that might have a book on it. I will look into that. Thanks for taking the time to respond.
ThomasD
I agree
Hey Tom,
One of the things I love about woodworking is that, as a craft, it has a rich heritage. I work in IT which has somewhat less of a heritage than woodworking. Obviously, I would rather be in my shop than at my desk.
Sometimes we get to see some of that rich heritage unfold in the pages of FWW. I'd like to see even more!
I'm sure not everyone agrees, but I've heard Christian Becksvoort talk a little about the Shakers in one of the podcasts, and I think it would be cool if he wrote an article about them and how the Shaker style evolved.
I would even appreciate it if some of the FWW guys, or you experienced woodworkers out there could recommend some books (maybe even published by Taunton???) that would help us newbies learn about the history of woodworking and famous woodworkers.
For me, learning about it's history makes woodworking more interesting and fun.
Building the better Smilodon trap
When I was young, we made furniture out of stone. After my uncle discovered how to make steel, though, we found wood was much easier, and only used the stones for sharpening. ;-)
The plethora of tools available today, I believe, is the cumulative result of many generations of improving the Smilodon trap.
I do find myself as a newbie here, and that has been confirmed by the responses. I do not know to whom I am talking. I will find another path forward. Evidently this is not the place for me.
Sorry, Thomas . . .
. . . but your question about the first flat, true board struck me as being akin to the question of who first decided there was something edible inside an artichoke, after it has been boiled.
We're mostly OK folks here, once you get past the occasional attempts at humor.
My guess is that woodworking, and the desirability of "true" stock, evolved after man became less concerned about pure survival. I can envision early attempts at making a chair, for example, by lashing together small branches, only to have the "joints" slip. That, in turn, may have prompted the invention of the round mortise and tenon, and things went from there.
I'm also confident that early woodworkers learned from their mistakes, and through those mistakes, learned to anticipate things like wood movement. Early board flattening had to be done with crude tools - first the ax, and later the adz. Necessity prompted the invention of better tools and even machines. There is evidence that early Egyptians, for example, made large gang saws for cutting stone slabs, using sand and water as the cutting agent. The Egyptians also understood "square" and the benefits of true surfaces keeping things together. The ancient Chinese were also pretty clever about making things, developing processes, etc.
It is unfortunate that examples of early woodworking, and the tools used, haven't survived. But, I'm confident that it, like most things, has been an evolutionary process.
Apology
I'm sorry if you were offended and your question not thoroughly answered. Keep tabs here for woodworking expertise - promise you won't be disappointed.
SA
Well you asked what we know . . .
Generally you guys have to admit this is pretty different . . .
meaning a new person is dismayed, if not down right pissed off and it wasn't even my fault !
: )
Allow me to jump in and also allow me (to use two different fonts apparently) and also allow me to jump in and then jump millennia back and forth like Eccentrica Galombits from Eroticon XI changes clients.
I may as well chime in. I read the original post and mostly thought , why not imagine some scenario and move on with learning wood working but I now see there is more than a passing interest.
OK
have you seen trees that have been directly struck by lightening ?
More than burn't like in the movies, a live tree can literally be blown apart. Imagine the water in the tree being turned into steam almost instantly . . . what would happen ? Basically a pressure vessel explosion.
So now we have tree lying all over the place in the form of wood split along the grain.
There is bound to be bench seat or even table top like slabs or at least half round/flat on one side shapes. VERY VERY splintery I can tell you but basically flat.
Perhaps some back in the day mastodon eating dude, or dudett discovers these and takes one back to the cave to sit on or as a surface to do work on. Could throw a skin over it to soften the splinter attack.
Splintery though he/she thinks. Splinters coming right through the wolf skin . . . hey if I rub it with this rock or scrape it with this broken spear head it gets the splinter situation taken care of.
Then with use it gets smoother or maybe rubbing it with sand under the rock smooths it out to the stage where it is actually a pleasure to behold and to touch. See drift wood on the beach.
Or some stuff like that.
NOW
About that comment about the old dudes not having high quality steel . . .
hahhhhh well there were these guys a thousand years or so ago , I could look it all up and stuff for specifics but then so can you, basically they were called samurai and they had these swords . . .
as it turns out the swords were pretty good. They used to test 'em by cutting stuff. What ever's around that they don't need.
Like for instance they might take a criminal condemned to death and . . . well . . . cut them in half through the the torso, bones and all. (Then go have a beer and talk about how cool it was. Guys. They haven't changed . . . right ?)
The conversation might have gone some thing like this : "Guys ! Did you see that ! One swing! Mannnnn . . . nice blade !"
They found this was no problem at all for the steel sword.
Turns out . . .
(I hope this isn't boring you or making you yawn and stuff )
. . . well turns out after making a blade they would send it out to be graded for quality. You know, like a restaurant, one star, two stars etc.
They would grade the blades by HOW MANY bodies the individual sword could cut through IN ONE SWIPE.
Well we have to have rules, and units of measure, for these "scientific" tests otherwise things just break down to barbarism and violence. Speaking of such I bet everybody is watching the game. See "guys" above.
Right ? So . . . turns out . . .
There were THREE body swords.
(pretty good for old time steel)
The same dudes that made the samurai swords were also making the wood working tools and in the same manner and quality.
Any questions ?
Hear are some links to books, wood working blades etc.
http://www.amazon.com/Craft-Japanese-Sword-Leon-Kapp/dp/087011798X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359859525&sr=1-1&keywords=samurai+sword+makers
http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Woodworking-Tools-Tradition-Spirit/dp/0941936465/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359859643&sr=1-1&keywords=japanese+woodworking+tools
http://www.japanwoodworker.com/product.asp?s=JapanWoodworker&pf_id=05%2E308%2E51&dept_id=12801
I cheated a little here because this chisel is in fact blue steel, as opposed to white steel but it shows the layers the best. Blue steel is modern alloy steel , white steel is the older stuff. The white steel is just amazingly great and not to be under estimated.
One of the first log smoothing tools
http://www.google.com/search?q=Yari+Kanna&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari#biv=i|9;d|i6eHgNENHgvCIM:
Sent from my iPad
Thank you, roc. You rock.That sword plane is the kind of thing I was curious about.
It seems that it has taken me thousands of dollars and lots of mistakes to even get a board true and smooth at the right size. That was an assignment to do with hand tools in my seventh grade shop class in 1957, but it didn't have to fit into anything else.
I am gradually awakening to the breadth and depth of the shoulders we stand upon. That was brought home to me lislening to the FW podcasts, which I love.
Thank you all for taking the time to repond. No worries.
ThomasD
ah shucks
>the breadth and depth of the shoulders we stand upon<
You said it !
I think about that all the time. Every time I walk into my shop at least.
Reading or hanging around people who know are the best ways to move ahead rapidly. I exclusively learned only from books and VHS etc. I didn't learn by actual person to person. I would have learned much faster; but may have missed some of the very best info which I still think can be picked up in the pages of past FWW issues and books.
Here is a truly great treasure :
http://www.amazon.com/Nick-Englers-Woodworking-Wisdom-Engler/dp/0875969909/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359925712&sr=1-1&keywords=nick+engler
that and starting from square one and learning some basic pencil and paper drafting skills. That helps see how things must relate and how to lay out lines square and precisely, on wood as well as paper.
Some times splitting the width of the line with saw or chisel for a final fit up. That was one of my very early mistakes. Cutting to a line , a wide line and cutting to the wrong side of it and not taking into account the width of the line and the distance the pencil line was out from the straight edge I was drawing along etc.
Pretty soon a person is an eighth of an inch off and has no idea why.
Yah, at least for us normal folk , FINE woodworking is pretty involved and full of wonders and traps.
thanks for your interest, posts etc.
full of wonders...
Unitl I retired, I did not have any time in my shop that was not building home basics, like carpentry, plumbing, electrical, etc. Now I am in new country and asking for a visa.
I am liking what is opening, but there is huge here. I guess that is what prompted my initial post.
ThomasD
Welcome to woodworking 101
Thomas:
Took a look at your website, very academic, but nicely done. You clearly put a lot of thought and work into it. If you were in the Atlanta area I could burn hours discussing educationally systems with you (with a bunch of woodworking thrown in). I'm truly sorry if you took exception to my reply to your post. My response was meant to encourage you to build and discover. The question of who was the first person to flatten a board is impossible to answer. Handplanes and saws go back over three thousand years ago. By the time of Christ the Romans were using metal soled infill planes. The Egyptians were using pull saws way before that.
Inspite of how flippant many of us can be at times, most of us who have been woodworkers for decades are willing to help with questions about tools, techniques, and materials. Sometimes we might point you to a book or other resource to help you develop. Tell us where you need help learning how to do something and we're here for you.
gdblake
Unclear question
I know from my educational work about what one does not know what one does not know.
I joined here because I have become immersed in a new world for me. I am simply reaching out to express what goes through my mind in sanding a board and worrying about curving the edge.
The more I work at making things in my shop and follow what I have learned through Fine Woodworking (build from Fine Homebuilding and cook from Fine Cooking) the more intrigued I am about where is anyone's locus of thoughtfulness. I plan, mark, and cut thinking about how much has happened before me in the tools I have and the procedures I follow. I know nothing about that heritage. I am adrift, I guess, like an orphan who never saw her parents.
I wonder about mistakes and problems and the culture of addressing them well. One can have an intention and ruin expensive boards. I assume people have worked to not ruin the next expensive board. I find myself unable to clearly formulate what intrigues me about what happens in that space between.
I seems there is a confluence of intent, error, and playfulness that leads forward in some ill-defined way. Do all woodworkers do that? Or. How do people bring that best renewed playfulness forward? Or. If one goes into the next gap between intent and error and thought, how does one pass inisght and solutions forward? There must be a history here.
Something like that is what I have been wondering about.
ThomasD
As you know, trial & error is an expensive way to learn
Thomas:
I'm fairly certain that the first woodworkers learned by trial and error, it's all they had. Then for centuries, the craft was learned on the job from masters teaching apprentices. Today there are several resources, books, DVDs, internet, and classes. I've always encouraged people to start with simple less expensive projects to learn the basics of squaring up a board, joinery, assembly, and finish. Several professionals build a piece out of pine or other cheap wood to work out a new design or high end piece before building with the expensive stuff.
Sanding by the way is a tough way to flatten/square up a board. Much quicker and easier with a handplane. Think about the topics such as hand planing, sawing, dovetails, etc. that interest you a do a quick search on the Internet to see if there is a youtube video, a blog, or other post that has the information you need. Your local library could be a good source for books. Lost Art Press is a good source for hand tool information.
I was taught woodworking exclusively with handtools as a boy. I still think this is the best way to learn. It puts you in closer contact with the wood and your tools.
gdblake
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