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First Steps with Sharp Objects

21K views 19 replies 14 participants last post by  crashn 
#1 ·
The Foreign and the Familiar

The image is iconic and familiar; an infant makes his first stumbling steps. With a push from couch or table, the small feet take a giant leap into a new world. Now add to this picture the child holding a butcher knife (and please don't try this at home). Scary scene isn't it. As I imagine myself sawing and (worse yet) chiseling on a piece of wood, I feel just about this way. But yet I push off into a big new world excited about the possibilities.

The first big decision, as I discovered, was what sort of hand tools I would get - Japanese or Western. The one choice, foreign and almost mystical. The other choice, as familiar as the rusty saw on my Grandfather's garage wall. As I began to explore the choice, I soon realized that one wasn't as foreign as I supposed and the other not as familiar. If a kanna is just a plane then I still have to learn a new periodic table of Stanley planes for every occasion.

My initial (and yet not necessarily exclusive) choice was to go with a Japanese saw (ryoba) and Chisel. In the end, it was a practical factor that swayed me - my aching back. It seemed that the pulling of a sharp, fine kerf Japanese saw more gentle than the pushing of a Western. Perhaps (and maybe unfairly) this harkens back to the muscle memory of pushing a home improvement special saw through a board sliding around a plastic miter box.

So should I have embraced my American heritage? I believe I did. Not only is the Japanese American story an equally valid American story, but the greatest American story (and one of our strengths) is pragmatism. Will I enjoy my choice, I will if it just works.

So with a nomi in one hand I stumble away from the safe couch into a new world.
 
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#3 ·
I am also at this point. Never had much training in hand tools. Used them very little. Now I look at them and want to expand my knowledge on using them, but I have discovered that there is a whole other world of tools there. So many choices.
Maybe I'll take another shaky wobble around the coffee table again, holding on.
 
#4 ·
I'm with ShipWreck, that was a rather well written post. I definitely agree with your point on pragmatism.

Whether you're talking about Western or Eastern methods of tool use, it's all just a means to an end. To use martial arts as a metaphor, Bruce Lee once said that the greatest technique is to have no technique at all. Of course, he didn't mean that sloppy and uncoordinated movements made the best fighter. What he meant is that by confining yourself to a rigid and inflexible system, you only limit yourself as you progress into that system.
 
#5 ·
When Did I become the Way Back Machine?

I'm not sure when it happened. I'm not sure why it happened? The one undeniable fact is that it had happened; I became the Way Back Machine.

The desire to make things out of wood unencumbered with cords or batteries has been with me for a long time. I have watched Roy Underhill on and off for years thinking some day I would give it a try. Likewise I've watched Norm Abrham's go from machine to machine and felt not an inkling to give that kind of woodworking a whirl. There's nothing terribly philosophical behind this notion. I have never hoped to be 'one with the wood' or consciously thought about preserving a bit of history with saws. There's not much to it other than preference. But a preference it is; I want to make things with handsaw and plane.

This is not the first anachronism of it's kind. A couple of years ago I searched for a replacement for yet another electric shaver. Not finding an electric replacement, I discovered DE Razors and the joys of brush and soap. On researching that, I ended up with my first fountain pen. Time and again I've searched for solutions for 21st century living and ended with the finest technology the 19th century has to offer.

Perhaps it is woven into my DNA, I've always enjoyed history. I just never thought I'd be living history this soon.

Bonus: Three extra points if you can name the reference for the way back machine.
 
#9 ·
Sub Tenders and Sawblades or a funny things happened on the way to the Choking

I began this hobby highly intrigued and drawn to Japanese hand tools. My first carpentry tool order was all Japanese tools and one book - Toshio Odate's "Japanese Woodworking Tools: Their tradition, spirit, and use" The first thing I did on getting the package is tear into the Odate book - figuratively and literally. I read most of it the first afternoon and evening.

As I read about his history in Japan enduring hardships during the war while he learned his craft, I thought of my own grandfather (the only one in my family I remember doing any sort of basic carpentry). While Mr. Odate was learning his craft, my grandfather was graduating high school and heading to the South Pacific - a young sailor on a Sub Tender in the U.S. Navy. The thoughts that flooded my mind weren't racist but rather a reflection of my own heritage. In an earlier blog I mentioned that pragmatism may be the most American of traits, I believe that but there is more - a sense of where we come from. I have no Asian heritage in my family (that I know of) with most of my family coming from England with a few fitting in from Alsace and Holland.

Another thing struck me as I opened the box of tools - I couldn't read a darn thing. Here I turn back to pragmatism. I can tell a chisel is a chisel without reading a box. However, when it comes to finding out how to use tools, I need to be a able to read or hear the spoken word. There is some information on Japanese tools and their use and Mr. Odate's book on their heritage, but not nearly as much as on Western woodworking (at least in English). Trying to find English reference on youtube to what I was looking for was equally fruitless. I actually found the first half of an informative joinery in English but the second half only in Japanese.

So with that barrier challenging me more than I had thought, my thoughts turn back to Western and American tools. I had liked the idea of a small craftsman in Japan making my tools by hand and then was shocked to discover that such a thing existed in American. In the wood working tool world, it seems to be thriving and I want to be part of that.
 
#10 ·
Your grandfather must have been amazed when he walked aboard a WWII sub tender. The shops on those ships were equipped to the max. The sailors who manned them had talents & skills that are long forgotten by now. I was a engineman serving on the USS Fulton AS-11 (1979-1982) out of New London Ct. She saw the Japanese theater in WWII. She still had most of the original shops and I could not believe the crafts that existed on one ship. Woodworking, pattern making, foundry, machine shops, welding, and many others. I was like a kid in Candyland. I had more fun on my off hours just watching and learning from these old trades than I ever did out on the town rough housing with my shipmates. I learned so much in that 2 1/2 year period.

When one of the General Motors 248 Alpha diesels would spin a bearing, the patternmakers would pull out some old microfiche, and the foundry would pour a new bearing, and we would hand scrape it to fit the crank journals. The ships crew could make anything out of nothing.

Fair winds and following seas to your grandfather!
 
#11 ·
Consumer versus Craft

There's a list of stuff I feel I 'should' make myself…

Bench hooks (already bought, $45)
Shooting board ($130 - ouch)
Marking gauge ($89)
Panel Gauge ($85)
Saw Benches (haven't found to buy but my two tiny saws aren't up to the task so yet another expense)
mallet (could get a chester plane adjusting for $57 and a Chris Schwarz approve in-fill mallet for $185)
moxon vise - $389
straight edge - $$$ for a metal one as long as I could make from wood
winding sticks -$30
square - $179 for 3"
partridge with optional pear tree - priceless

...but am intimidated because I don't feel I have the right tools yet or the skill.

I can see where you could buy your way into this and spend quite a bunch without developing the skill to make these bench accessories etc.

So where do I start???!
 
#12 ·
Man I feel your pain, I don't know if there is enough space on here for my "should" list and the more I read on here and learn the longer the "should" list gets. Good luck and I am curious what the more experienced woodworkers on here will tell you.
 
#19 ·
I'm not in the Witness Protection Program.

I have been down for the count. When I signed in today I noticed it's been about a month since I responded to anything on the site. My back/neck has been giving me fits. Today I got a nerve block so I'm hoping/praying/willing myself downstairs tomorrow to start the project I was about to start earlier - the straightedge from the New Traditional Woodworker series of projects. I have a board of walnut, a board of cherry, the book, and an incentive - an Old Street Jack in the mail for Larry and Don.
 
#20 ·
I have had at least a dozen nerve blocks, both in my neck and lower back. Finally had neck surgery about 2 years ago, which really helped. Now, just have to get surgery on my lower back.

Hope it works for you, they (the nerve blocks) did for me. Hope you feel better!
 
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