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Saturday, December 31, 2011

What Is Basic?

Illness and Christmas have kept me out of the shop for any serious work.  There is a bright side, though.  All the forced down time presented an opportunity to catch up on a lot of woodworking reading.  A Google book search like this one will show you the titles I have been perusing in addition to my own small library.

I have been specifically looking at beginning woodworking.  I wanted to see how authors broached the subject with their would-be students/readers.  Some write about tools, some write about sharpening tools, some write about mind set, and then some write about spiritual satisfaction to be found in the working of wood.  After the introduction, they go on to write about the mechanics.

There is a commonality among all I have read and personally experienced:  the basics of woodworking begin with work holding.  Present masters may lecture otherwise, or they may agree.  When it gets right down to it whatever your philosophical bent, you eventually have to put tool to wood and that wood needs to be held in place.

I outgrew my current vise before I ever installed it.  My amateur advice is to make sure you have a way to hold the wood, even if you are only building birdhouses.

COMING SOON:  pictures of the pint size Roubo build.

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