What is Woodworking

by Ridg Gilmer

Over the past year, WWCH members have enjoyed programs that included CAD or Computer Assisted Design and another on computer-driven-machine-made projects that not only boggle the imagination but also stimulate us to create pieces well beyond what we might attempt manually. But are these exercises in computer design or in woodworking? Are we moving far from our craft and more into production mode? Maybe some of us wish to regress more to the feel of actual wood beneath our fingers or at least beneath some tool that we hold in our hand.

We may have attended one of Graham Blackburn’s sessions at our spring woodworking shows. From his book, "Traditional Woodworking Techniques" he states, "To sit on a piece of wood and work a molding with a hand plane is to come to know that piece of wood almost as if it were a person. To thrust it through a noisy machine in fear of your fingers, your senses insulated by safety glasses, earplugs, and dust masks, is to be at an unfortunate remove from its knots and its grain, its feel, smell and texture." Are we missing something?

James Krenov, among the most artistic cabinetmakers and mentors of our time, seems to set up an even more distant remove prior to beginning his work. He finds, stores, dries, visits with and develops a personal bond with certain specimens of widely varying wood species in his shop. Only after long contemplation of its place in his artistry does Krenov begin to work with a piece, from which he has visualized what it should become. From his "The Fine Art of Cabinetmaking" he says, "From the start, try to build up a ‘play’ between this wood and what you want to make." He also has definite ideas about how to go about creating pieces from the primary material he loves, "Designers draw things instead of making them, I feel. Does not ‘design’ stand for an enforcement of ideas upon a material?" And by inference, as well as by long practice, Krenov uses the material to inspire his ideas and to design a creation. To some extent, we all try to find the most appropriate pieces of material from which to build our projects, but do we begin with a piece of wood and from it imagine some special use? Yes, we do this at times, but this is not our routine approach.

In his classic text, "A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook", Krenov urges, almost chastises us into perfection in the totality of our work. Referring to a well made drawer, "You pull it all the way out, and you look at the back of it, and you see that someone has really cared. The back is as fine as the front. The bottom isn’t plywood; there is no part that makes you say, ‘Well, don’t look at this; it’s not important, it’s at the back of the thing, you know, and you never really see it.’" In a later chapter, he acknowledges the value of machines. He could not build the delicate book-matched masterpieces from, say Swedish pear wood, without his treasured 18" bandsaw. He says, "I often make the doors of my cabinets first because it’s much more difficult to find the wood and the inspiration for making a pair of doors than it is to make the case of a cabinet."

He seeks a balance between efficiency and fine detail. "Say to the machine, ‘You and I have come this far together…Thank you, machine - and goodbye. I am going to do the rest without you. Because I have those beautiful tools. Because with them in my hands I know better what I want to say, and how to say it my way – not yours.’" In our shops, we may or not have "those beautiful tools," many of which Krenov made himself. Perhaps we may create an original jig, with which we can make a "machine" perform something it doesn’t usually do and that may be an alternative acceptable to Krenov, but not really!

Lastly, let’s get Krenov’s take on what it takes to become a master cabinetmaker. He spoke of a school colleague, Ramon, who wished to become a cabinetmaker, but failed. He made multiple small mistakes that compounded into larger ones, leaving him depressed. Haven’t we all felt this at some point? Krenov observed, "He just simply didn’t have the – I don’t know what you would call it – not exactly the intuition, let’s say the logic, the combination of logic and concentration and self-confidence that it takes to keep work of that that kind flowing, partly because it is very exact work with the machines in the preparatory stages and later on the skill of the fingers and the hand tools. If you make mistakes in the initial stages – a millimeter suddenly becomes two millimeters or three, and a right angle being something less or more than a right angle – these little mistakes follow you all through the process of the work. If you are conscientious and hopeful and really want to do fine work, then it is tremendously discouraging, heartbreaking, to find that you don’t have that logic, the ability to coordinate all these things."

Perhaps few of us have Krenov’s combination of gifts, but we aspire to do better and that keeps us coming back into our shops. At our June 2005 meeting, Program Chair and woodworking show judge, Dennis Serig, pointed out the importance of choosing an appropriate category when entering work for competition. As members, our work represents all such categories and levels of expertise and we applaud work of all varieties. Now that’s woodworking!