Celebration of Craftsmanship

[Jacob]

Can't say I'm that bothered about Celebration of Craftsmanship myself - such a struggle to be clever and original! I've got a bit of a prejudice against 'creativity'. It's not always good for people! So much imitation of the so-called masters; "a Krenov inspired design" has become a contradiction in terms.
Yes for internet and media being a jungle with at least 90% total misinformation on woodwork.
Mags like "Woodworker" were good 60 years ago but it's been downhill ever since and the whole craft being re-written by born-again experts and gadget salesmen.
And yes for training - if it's the right stuff, but how would anybody know? Trad sources such as City &Guilds are reliabIe.
I was amazed at the simple stuff I learned with my brief exposure - even after years of reading mags and books full of, at best, too much information or at worst, total gadget sales pitches. Doubly amazed that all the stuff I learnt in wood work classes at school suddenly made sense!

 

[Jacob]

.....
With it being the exam results season, Anyone else got any thoughts?

About maths, I'm not bad at it myself but what has intrigued me over the years is how much craft work you can do, and probably do better, with hardly numerical maths skills at all. There's a whole massive tradition of graphic layout techniques, rods, projections etc. Brain power needed but not much maths.
And a whole set of techniques for precision making with simple tools; dividers, sliding bevels, squares etc. It's possible to make precise examples of complicated objects starting with no maths or measurements at all; just a few marks on a board followed up with dividers, gauges etc.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I know this thread is supposed to be about the award but I'd like to add to my rant

I was talking to a mechanic friend today who's had a college apprentice for over a year now, a very talented mechanic at 17 who from what I was told excels at the practical stuff and is very keen. Unfortunately, this lad was at risk of not passing further in his apprenticeship because he didn't have the correct piece of paper that said he could do Maths since he hadn't passed with a C grade in school, so they make you do it all again in college on the side. Now, this kid wasn't good at maths, he wasn't an academic at all so he struggled the whole way through this qualification to try and achieve his C grade despite the mechanic and even the college tutors saying it wasn't really necessary for the job as there really isn't much in the way of mathematics that isn't already sorted out for you on a chart or something. He managed to scrape a C grade in the end after a re-sit but I do find it really daft that the college was going to halt this boy's further education and apprenticeship just because he couldn't do something that wasn't really relevant to the course, all because the government thinks everyone in the country should have a C in Mathematics minimum. Surely if everyone's got a C in mathematics that just makes it a worthless grade anyway?

With the woodworking, I do quite a lot of mathematics, but almost all of it is done on a calculator once it gets over 2-digit numbers. I would wager I haven't even used 20% of what I had to learn in school to pass mathematics, most of it you don't encounter in day to day life unless you're a maths teacher :?. I also feel unless you're applying that knowledge you've learned to something fairly regularly(I.E Using geometry in woodworking) you pretty much forget all about it once you leave school, so then what's the point of learning it? Wouldn't it be more useful to be learning proper life skills that WILL help people down the line in their life rather than a bunch of babble you don't need to know unless you're going into those specific fields? As I said, the last 2 years of school for me were a total waste of time except for the construction course I did, I would've been far better off going into further education earlier on and learning mathematics and such relevant to the field I was getting into rather than trying to cram too much unnecessary, useless knowledge in my head.

With it being the exam results season, Anyone else got any thoughts?

I can do maths - I am actually reasonably good at it - up to calculus, partial fractions and all that nonsense. What I can't do, apparently, is calculate the size of a pair of doors for a bathroom cabinet. Doors #1 were 12mm too narrow. Doors #2 are currently 8mm too wide. Sigh. How hard can it be - it's only adding up and taking away, ffs! Turns out being "clever" is in no way useful in the real world. Need to purchase a workshop calculator, which is just humiliating.

 

[Bm101]

Next you'll be saying that complex mathematical calculations haven't been used for millenia by woodworkers whose experience of reading, writing and maths might be considered basic by modern standards.
Divide and rule (at least its ancient Greek equivalent) seems to have been attributed to Phillip the 2 of Macedon. Never heard of him? Me neither till 5 minutes ago. I googled the term. Turns out he was Alexander the Great's old man. 300 bc. I have heard of that fella. But that term is about subjugating the people. We are talking about wood.

Could be though that divide and rule is a measuring mantra. Dividers, a straight edge (your ruler) and a marker. All of a sudden you take measuring out of the equation in terms of maths and you are back to transferring marks. Other than bad technique or lack of knowledge it strikes me that every bad mistake I have made is due to trying to measure not transfer a mark.
And yeh. I know I'm just a shed boy. I don't do this for a living. I'm not comparing my experience to you 24/7 kitchen fitters out there. Just saying.

Otherwise how did I make these precision parts (gears for the Radial Motion Wing Diffuser for my MDF spaceship) just with my Moore and Wright dividers, a steel rule and a pencil. Right?!?

 

[Jacob]

...
Could be though that divide and rule is a measuring mantra. Dividers, a straight edge (your ruler) and a marker. All of a sudden you take measuring out of the equation in terms of maths and you are back to transferring marks. Other than bad technique or lack of knowledge it strikes me that every bad mistake I have made is due to trying to measure not transfer a mark.

Spot on. Get free of the tape measure as soon as you can. Once you've set up your rods or other form of full size layout you don't need it, you are on auto pilot.

 

[Jacob]

...
I can do maths - I am actually reasonably good at it

That's your problem - it's a sledge hammer to crack a nut

... What I can't do, apparently, is calculate the size of a pair of doors for a bathroom cabinet. ..... Need to purchase a workshop calculator, which is just humiliating.

No you don't. You need to learn basic layout skills and how to work from a rod. No calculations involved.
Very traditional, very efficient.
I do it on lengths of white MFC shelving. First mark your opening, then the clearance gaps, then the width of stiles, then mark centre with dividers.. and so on.
Then take the marks off by laying on the workpieces all marked up face and edge all equal and opposite - strike up pencil marks with a little set square, then mark all round with a square. etc
I didn't know how to do it even after years of reading mags, which is in principle why I dumped the huge bundle I'd accumulated and never read another one in 35 years. They are all rubbish.

 

[Bm101]

Are you not even going to mention the MDF spaceship Jacob?
Go onnnnn.... someone want's to say what those bits are for... (hammer)

 

[Jacob]

Are you not even going to mention the MDF spaceship Jacob?
Go onnnnn.... someone want's to say what those bits are for... (hammer)

Er - not quite with you there? Tell me more!
PS Oh I see the mysterious objects in your post! Where is it now - on the way to Mars? :lol:
I re-use the rods - rub out the old marks etc. Sometimes last for years.
PS shop and kitchen fitters used to use rods - I was told all about it by an old chap working in department stores - they'd clear the floor/wall space and roll out a full size drawing and take all marks from that and roll it up again.
Boat builders do it, sail makes do it in sail lofts, steel yards used to do full size layouts with on the floor with chalk lines etc.
Builders do - ancient greeks do it in temples - there are scratch mark layouts found on floors. Everybody was doin it, nobody measured anything or worked anything out on the back of an envelope!

 

[doctor Bob]

Otherwise how did I make these precision parts (gears for the Radial Motion Wing Diffuser for my MDF spaceship) just with my Moore and Wright dividers, a steel rule and a pencil. Right?!?

A spaceship you say, tell me more. I started with a birch ply teleporter, never thought of space travel?
Any idea how to make the warp thrusters, may need external MDF.

 

[Peter Sefton]

Rods will always be used in hand woodworking but many more machine based workshops will use measurement far more. Machines with flips fences on measuring tapes and digital readouts rely on accurate cutting lists, often taken from scale drawings.

We use rods far more for curved or angled work if hand drawn, or some students will work off their lap top drawing packages whilst production shops may send the drawings to the CNC.

I think they call it progress....

Cheers

Peter

 

[Peter Sefton]

From above comments mentioned here, I was really expecting to find more discussion about other things possibly missing from the internet like...
Obscure thinking outside the box design principals being forced upon thee often,
business studies, and marketing/learning to talk and being able to convey your expertise....
and (insert your point here) kinda thing.

Tom

Peter Sefton has probably got one of the best schools currently and the syllabus for his long course deals with the business aspect in Term 3 but there appears to be a caveat of 'should they wish.' There's a little optional bit tacked onto the end dealing with 'Self Employment, writing a Business Plan and Marketing' so it appears that workshop activities are paramount.
Conversely, if you were to dip into Alan Peters book "Cabinet Making, the Professional Approach" there's a huge swathe dealing with the business aspect of running a workshop which I feel is equally, if not more important than the actual nuts n'bolts of woodworking; this was one of the prime movers of John Makepeace's Parnham House course lasting two years. Anyone seeking to go into self-employed woodworking as a means of earning a living should, in my view, regard themselves as a businessman/woman first and a woodworker some way second - Rob

Most of our students do undertake the business module in the third term but some students have no intention of going into business or have just taken early retirement from running their own businesses, and now just want to enjoy woodworking.

I feel anyone who is considering self employment or working in a small craft workshop should have a good and clear understanding running a business. It is such a different skill to making but critical to survival.

I spent Friday night and a fair proportion of yesterday at CCD, again a very good show. Meeting up with past students now in business and taking our incoming students to see what can be achieved.

We had six past students work on display, so nice to see others enjoying the creative side of woodworking and drumming up business for the economy.

Cheers Peter

Cheers

Peter

 

[Jacob]

Rods will always be used in hand woodworking but many more machine based workshops will use measurement far more. Machines with flips fences on measuring tapes and digital readouts rely on accurate cutting lists, often taken from scale drawings. .......

Yes I do the same but only for very simple stuff. But the slightest level of complexity and you have to revert to 100% marking up from a rod, unless you have CNC machinery or something approaching. Even a glazing bar with say 4 mortices equally spaced (different sizes for stiles and glazing bars) would be difficult with flip fences. You could cut the lengths OK but there'd be some frantic setting up for the mortice machine. Much easier to do it by eye from marks.
I learned this with sash windows. A multi paned sash will have 30 or more components with very few repeats. The four rails of the lights are each different and the bottom one has a bevel. They also have to fit the box frame which has a bevel on the cill. Also the objective is to get all 12 (or more) panes of glass exactly the same size. And there are clearance gaps all over the place. Then you have to repeat this if you are doing a set.
Trying to work that out on paper would be fiendishly difficult. Sketchup could do it but you still have to transfer 100s of marks to the workpiece, unless you could CNC it somehow.
Doing it on a rod is the answer and virtually eliminates mistakes. You could confidently cut the glass as a first operation (if you really wanted to!) knowing that it will fit perfectly even weeks later when the rest of the stuff has been put together, and so on.
It's a much neglected skill - it doesn't feature much even in the old books, as it was amongst the first things you'd learn, like sharpening, and was taken for granted.
A simple rod is the answer to Trainee Neophyte's simple problem. A calculator would just make it harder and more error prone. Sketchup would work it out but you'd still have to transfer marks by hand somehow.

 

[Jacob]

...
We use rods far more for curved or angled work if hand drawn, or some students will work off their lap top drawing packages whilst production shops may send the drawings to the CNC.

I think they call it progress....

Cheers

Peter

I call it de-skilling; dependency on expensive and elaborate technology with sacrifice of basic skills. OK for mass production but a huge handicap for the small operator, one-off maker, fitter etc.
I assume the 'Celebration of Craftsmanship' products rely not on automated machine production but on hands-on craftsmanship - or is that really just a thing of the past?

 

[woodbloke66]

Most of our students do undertake the business module in the third term but some students have no intention of going into business or have just taken early retirement from running their own businesses, and now just want to enjoy woodworking.

I feel anyone who is considering self employment or working in a small craft workshop should have a good and clear understanding running a business. It is such a different skill to making but critical to survival.

Peter

That's fair enough Peter for those who have no wish to pursue the business aspect, but as I said, it's absolutely critical that anyone going into woodmangling with a view to making a living out of it must, of necessity, know how to go about running a business. So often I've heard of keen woodworkers who seem to approach the craft through rose tinted specs and then bump up against a very hard dose of reality when they can't make ends meet or at least show any sort of a profit to enable them to continue. This I feel is where Alan Peters book is so good because reading it makes you really think hard about the business aspect. That said, it was published many years ago and things have moved on, principally with the use of this new fangled t'interweb thingie, but the basic precepts contained in the book are still very much current - Rob

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Went to see the exhibition yesterday - great location and organisation, besides amazing works - and then (after a good lunch) stopped off at the Wilson museum to see some earlier examples of fine furniture.

An excellent day out and highly recommended.

https://www.celebrationofcraftsmanship.com/about
https://www.cheltenhammuseum.org.uk/col ... ollection/

 

[Steve Maskery]

I went down today with my mate Stuart. There is some astonishing work there (as well as a couple of pieces that make me look competent and a couple of pieces that make your eyes go funny). I was delighted to see a David Savage chair there. Absolutely beautiful. Apparently the business is being continued by some of his tutors. Excellent.

The other thing that struck me was how reasonable some of the prices were. Yes, some seemed "optimistic", shall we say, but far more were surprisingly sensible. I spoke to one maker who said, "To be honest I hadn't really given the price much thought". Oops.

Nearly six hours driving (several holdups, especially on the way home), but worth it.

So now, after having been awake (involuntarily) since 4am, I'm going to have a bath and an early night.

 

[rafezetter]

.....
With it being the exam results season, Anyone else got any thoughts?

About maths, I'm not bad at it myself but what has intrigued me over the years is how much craft work you can do, and probably do better, with hardly numerical maths skills at all. There's a whole massive tradition of graphic layout techniques, rods, projections etc. Brain power needed but not much maths.
And a whole set of techniques for precision making with simple tools; dividers, sliding bevels, squares etc. It's possible to make precise examples of complicated objects starting with no maths or measurements at all; just a few marks on a board followed up with dividers, gauges etc.

Story sticks.

Egyptians used them for hundreds of years, as did shipwrights - worked then for the "uneducated" masses - what's so different now?

I read an article a few years back from a woodworker who has all but stopped using a tapemeasure altogether for all but the initial measurements on a stick.

Edit - ahh it' all been said, but I'll leave it here anyway.

(Steve.. Why didn't you stay at Eriks?)

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Gentlemen, (and ladies, and the other 63 genders if appropriate), thank you for you advice re rods, storyboards etc. I have learned more in 3 months on this site than 40 years of bodging on my own. I didn't even know what a shooting board was until the day I signed up here.

I know I am an embarrassment to people who know (I have been looking in on Jacob's blind dovetail post - wow!), but I hope to stand on the shoulders of greatness, as it were, to lever myself up to a level that won't bring utter shame to all involved. Just be gentle with my cackhandedness in the meantime, and don't look at the bathroom cabinet - doors now made, <<almost>> millimeter perfect. I will even post a picture once it is assembled, as a salutary lesson in how not to make furniture.

 

[Jacob]

Gentlemen, (and ladies, and the other 63 genders if appropriate), thank you for you advice re rods, storyboards etc. I have learned more in 3 months on this site than 40 years of bodging on my own. I didn't even know what a shooting board was until the day I signed up here.

I know I am an embarrassment to people who know (I have been looking in on Jacob's blind dovetail post - wow!), but I hope to stand on the shoulders of greatness, as it were, to lever myself up to a level that won't bring utter shame to all involved. Just be gentle with my cackhandedness in the meantime, and don't look at the bathroom cabinet - doors now made, <<almost>> millimeter perfect. I will even post a picture once it is assembled, as a salutary lesson in how not to make furniture.

:lol:
Don't worry about it - anybody on here who is any good at anything started out being utterly cr@p at it. Just a fact of life.
Incidentally the reason why I set up a DT project for myself was because I thought I was cr@p at it. Still am, but improving!
Being taught about the rod was for me the biggest single revelation about how to do woodwork. I knew nothing about it before. Except of course we did geometry at school but it was always a bit abstract and not much about problem solving, a useful basic skill.
The nearest equivalent feeling was when I first got my hands on a computer (Mac LC 475)

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Gentlemen, (and ladies, and the other 63 genders if appropriate), thank you for you advice re rods, storyboards etc. I have learned more in 3 months on this site than 40 years of bodging on my own. I didn't even know what a shooting board was until the day I signed up here.

I know I am an embarrassment to people who know (I have been looking in on Jacob's blind dovetail post - wow!), but I hope to stand on the shoulders of greatness, as it were, to lever myself up to a level that won't bring utter shame to all involved. Just be gentle with my cackhandedness in the meantime, and don't look at the bathroom cabinet - doors now made, <<almost>> millimeter perfect. I will even post a picture once it is assembled, as a salutary lesson in how not to make furniture.

:lol:
Don't worry about it - anybody on here who is any good at anything started out being utterly cr@p at it. Just a fact of life.
Incidentally the reason why I set up a DT project for myself was because I thought I was cr@p at it. Still am, but improving!
Being taught about the rod was for me the biggest single revelation about how to do woodwork. I knew nothing about it before. Except of course we did geometry at school but it was always a bit abstract and not much about problem solving, a useful basic skill.
The nearest equivalent feeling was when I first got my hands on a computer (Mac LC 475)

It is obvious, now you have pointed it out: measure twice, cut once, but make a rod, and never measure again seems even more sensible. I've had a quick Google, and I am now an expert in making fishing rods - need to reword my search terms, methinks.