I spent Monday rethinking my jig for boring out the mortises in my bench legs. It wasn’t really complicated, but amazingly took up most of the day. I guess I am working slower with my recent handicap. I brought the thickness of my legs down a bit in order to remove a bit of sap-wood and then re-did my jig based on the new dimensions. That Carpenters song, Rainy Days and Mondays was stuck in my head all day.
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| Johnny and Tom hard at work. |
Since I won’t have my full grip strength back for a little while yet, on Tuesday Laura gave me the go ahead to use the XY machine for my mortises. Dan Wacker showed me how to set all the various stops on it and after a fair amount of setup I was ready to cut my mortises. Well, the machine was ready. I was feeling a bit anxious to be cutting into my “real” wood, my walnut. This isn’t a mock up anymore, if I made my jig wrong or if I set the stops a little off there’s no going back. Despite the ease of using the XY machine and the fact that I don’t smoke, I felt like I needed a cigarette after making those 8 mortises.
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| Mollie working the Oliver bandsaw. |
On Wednesday I found that compound angles are directly correlated to compound headaches. Man this is confusing. I need my mortises to run parallel to my bench top for maximum strength, I need the legs to sit in a particular order so as the grain graphics feel and look right. I need each leg to sit of 10 degrees parallel to the bench and also 7.5 degrees perpendicular to the bench. And the feet of the legs must be parallel to their tops. None of that actually makes sense to me either, and after looking at trigonometry equations for five seconds I understood why David told me I was doing it wrong. This isn’t math; it’s woodworking. It’s about the wood, seeing what looks right, not calculating it.
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| Derek demonstrating proper homage before using his Japanese dovetail saw. |
On Thursday I’m in front of the table saw most of the morning. After about 17 trial and error cuts I know how to get the compound angles in the legs. Make cut 1 with blue tape up, turn the leg 180 degrees and then either rotate in or out depending on where it’s supposed to sit on the bench. Don’t ask me why that worked. I have no idea, it just did.
David brought in a cabinet made by Krenov on Friday. It was inspiring to hear more stories of the man who many of us are indebted to for helping to find our way into woodworking. It was even more inspiring to see and handle his work.
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| A James Krenov cabinet. |
For a few weeks I’ve been telling myself I need to stop and take some time to reflect upon what I’m doing and how I’m being affected by it. It’s clear I’m learning and my skills are improving, ever so slowly. But how am I outside of the shop being affected by what I do in the shop?
I’ve found myself looking to the “next”; the next step, the next cut, the next project. Almost everything I’ve done in the shop has been centered in the idea of a finished piece of furniture, my finished bench. This is something I’ve experienced in climbing too, always moving in my mind to the next move, to the next pitch, and with that movement the focus rests on the top, the summit, the end. Summits, fine pieces of furniture- they’re great things, but being a woodworker or being a climber does not happen in that passing moment of completion. It is happening in every breath before that. I want to be more present in the movement of my plane, not the step I’m trying to move on from. What is the value of my work if I am always trying to move away from what it is that I’m doing? The movements, the feelings, and the thoughts that come from this craft are what have drawn me to it. It would be a great loss to always look past them, even those moments of frustration or dismay. It’s those moments of challenge that make the process that much more worthy, that make room for growth as an aspiring woodworker. I hope in this next week I won’t be thinking so much of completing tasks, but of being present in them.
"Comrades of the [shop]! I call upon you to bear me witness. When have we felt ourselves happy men?"
Anotione de Saint-Exupery
Wind, Sand and Stars
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| Johnny being present in his dovetails. |
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| The pieces to my piece as they are now. |
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