Very interesting Pete.
The point that the author makes about training is key, I think and one that concerns me greatly.
How many woodworkers' only 'training' was watching 'Norm' and 'Boyz (sic) from the wood' as there are few courses and fewer apprenticeships around now?
When I was a very young lad of maybe 4 or 5 years, I used to watch my dad make furniture and pass him tools when he was fixing the car (again!!). Later, when about 9-10 years old I used to go out with him during school holidays and 'help' to install doors, windows, gates, fences... as by this point he had decided there was more money in general carpentry than hand made furniture. He bought me a small hammer, a block plane and a very small saw
I still remember the smell of the sandwiches toasting on the end of a stick by a small fire in the garden of some run-down house he was renovating
Later still I became an apprentice engineer and was taught the correct ways to file, draw-file, saw, mill, turn, drill and use various other bits of industrial machinery.
It seems to me that these days there are few if any apprenticeships out there and a host of electronic gadgets to distract. I guess most kids of 9-16 spend a lot of time playing computer games, on the WWW or pursuing other passive activities rather than helping dad plane a piece of wood or fix the car.
On that rather depressing note I end
Tony
