tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2976499952885642848.post4213854878104504226..comments2022-02-25T10:50:38.538-08:00Comments on Oregon Woodworker by Andy Margeson: Bob is rightUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2976499952885642848.post-24387597516255611262018-02-08T10:17:48.692-08:002018-02-08T10:17:48.692-08:00Don’t let yourself be unduly influenced by the an...Don’t let yourself be unduly influenced by the annointed woodworking Pharisees who attempt to place yokes upon the craftsman with their anti-machine virtue signaling. One of them recently admitted that he did use a bandsaw, but felt guilty and kept it in the corner ..and he then blathered-on about the moral superiority of wood bodied planes over metal planes. See…using hand tools is not enough. They need to be *pre-industrial* hand tools. I keep waiting for a call to abandon that icon of Victorian industrialism…the egg beater drill… in favor of the more “ethical” bow drill. And lo and behold….these same hand tool elites are now preaching that we need to abandon methods and styles of furniture that are inherently tied to the age of the machine and instead to adopt and embrace vernacular peasant furniture. Quit worrying about surface finish, whether parts are square, gaps in joinery, etc. Just chop it out with an axe, nail it together, and slather on some milk paint, all by candle-light mind you.<br /><br />I am not an ardent fan of the Krenov style, and I do not care for the Studio Furniture “arteest” mentality, but he did more for the idea of the “integrity of craft”, and influenced more woodworkers to pursue craftsmanship than all of the handtool-only woodworking re-enactors combined. This is because he understood that the real question is not hand tools vs. machines but Workmanship of Risk vs. Workmanship of Certainty and how to balance these.<br /><br />So take pleasure in using woods and machines and hand tools in whatever combination allows you to achieve what you want to achieve. <br /><br />Jeff<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2976499952885642848.post-29818645496307132232018-02-08T07:12:20.495-08:002018-02-08T07:12:20.495-08:00Recently learned this lesson when I took a freshly...Recently learned this lesson when I took a freshly sharpened Diston D8 to try to re-saw some Curly Hard Maple. It's been a bear to work with. Resawing two feet of board took me over an hour and managed to raise a blister on my palm as reward. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12443265182043871213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2976499952885642848.post-6760978136977460382018-02-08T03:19:52.535-08:002018-02-08T03:19:52.535-08:00Andy,
Like you I like White Oak for some projects...Andy,<br /><br />Like you I like White Oak for some projects. It can be a bear to plane but M/T's aren't too bad with a good pig sticker. MsBubba's kitchen cart has White Oak legs with three mortises per leg, I thought about putting a taper on the legs for about two seconds and quickly came to my senses, What can I say other than it is what it is.....But pretty when finished.<br /><br />kenI'm a OK guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11843155822153452980noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2976499952885642848.post-8647062744242458422018-02-08T01:18:28.979-08:002018-02-08T01:18:28.979-08:00Th arts and crafts movement as envisioned by Ruski...Th arts and crafts movement as envisioned by Ruskin and Morris used white oak in imitation of the medieval esthetic, as Ruskin put it, “Oak tables and rush chairs”. <br /><br />Morris wasn’t opposed to machine work. He had a big Factory in Merton. Lots of machines and such.<br /><br /> What he was opposed to was division of labor where each worker only saw a small piece of the work, so his workers saw a job through to completion. That’s where the craft part came in for him. The unplugged shop is the current aesthetic. It wasnt Morris’. By not using machines, you add a complication that wasn’t originally there. In this country, the Stickley Factory was pretty mechanized, <br /><br />So working white oak by hand wasn’t an issue. I’m guessing white oak was used to match those tables that started the movement, and because the wild rays were the opposite of all the bland mahogany in vogue. It wasn’t just the Arts and crafts movement, either. I have Victorian and Edwardian pieces that also used quartersawn oak. <br /><br />But 40 years later, the Greene brothers used Teak, cedar, cherry, mahogany, fir, and maybe another 10 species in the Gamble house. You have perfectly valid excuses to use other species.Larryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12901803717919678670noreply@blogger.com