What We Know?

When I first opened my cabinet shop, I had an Open House to let friends and family share in what we were about to begin. An elderly man from our church came to the Open House. He introduced himself, and then walked past my display on his way to one of the 14” chestnut timbers supporting the old mill building my shop was in. He rubbed his hand on the 1” wide chamfered corner and said “this takes me back”. Then he explained that when he began his apprenticeship in the early 1900’s, his first job was to cut these chamfers with a drawknife.

I illustrated my ignorance by saying that I couldn’t imagine even having apprentices spend their time putting a decorative edge on a support column in a mill building. He looked at me and said “you don’t know much about these buildings, do you?” He went on to explain that the chamfers weren’t for decoration, they were for fire prevention. There were no sprinklers back then and the chamfered edge was to slow the spread of fire. As my visitor put it: “fire will lick right up the sharp corner of a beam, so you have to cut these to prevent that.” Humbled, I also admitted to not being very good with a drawknife. I told him that I enjoy using what I consider a sister tool, the spokeshave, but the two tools are really very different. A spokeshave is more like a plane and is easy to control. A drawknife requires a serious skill to control. My elderly friend laughed and asked me for a drawknife and a piece of scrap. He quickly gave me a few lessons and I realized just how much I still had to learn.

This man spent well over an hour telling me about woodworking in his day, explaining how they would make the intricate joints, and both functional and decorative edges, long before any of the machines I had installed were available. I got the clear sense that this man could out-build me, armed only with the contents of my hand tool cabinet. He urged me to use hand tools often, suggesting that using hand tools “lets you feel the wood’s reaction to what you’re doing” – something my father had also told me. Recently, as my daughter was making the Letter Box pictured at the top, I introduced her to these tools. In addition to learning to understand what the wood is telling you, using the hand tools helps you better understand their modern powered replacements.

Next week, we’re going to begin a series on photography. This is a bit of a flip-flop, as it is my daughter who is teaching me many of these skills. Faith will be taking over Training Debate for a few weeks; I’m looking forward to her thoughts.