I know, when it comes down to it, you never really stop learning in this, or any other game, but I am curious as to the backgrounds of the woodworkers here. Where did your learn your trade/hobby? Passed down thru the family? trade school? your own?
Also, if you could pass on one line of advice to the next generation of possible woodworkers, what would that one line be?
reading, hanging out on the Wreck (believe it or not! :) ) and just "going for it". Like I said before, it isn't rocket science, but there is a LOT to learn. The FIRST thing to learn in my opinion is how to work SAFELY!
dave
js wrote:
In school, I took the mechanical drawing, woodshop & metal shop classes. Pop was a general contractor and I worked for him in the summertime. Had to drop out of college when I was 20 and went to work for IBM. The computer biz was it for the next 38 years, but I always had a small shop in the garage. Built an addition on my first house and built my second house - a 3000 sq. ft. tri-level. Added a 2nd 2 car garage & shop to my thrd house. Just got the shop the way I wanted and moved :-( Involuntarily retired but had the foresight to invest for 4 decades, so retirement is starting to grow on me :-)
Invest 10% of everything you earn and don't touch it for anything but retirement.
-Doug
Apparently genetically from both grandfathers and my father ... all self-sufficient, problem solving men to the core, who believed in doing for themselves, and who were all inately convinced that it there was anything one individual could do, they could accomplish also.
BTW, this has been asked, and replied to, before:
Start young. I still have the hand saw with which my grandfather taught me how to start a cut on a board some 55 years ago ... I can still feel that big hand over mine showing me how to use my thumb as a guide.
never thought to google for it before I asked. was just curious.
woodworkers
My father was always an avid WWer, and he learned from his very skilled grandfather. We've got a number of pieces that "Dado" (my great-grandfather) created. While some of them reflect Depression-era scrounging, the craftsmanship is impeccable.
Be safer than we were. ;-)
Seriously, learn to take safety seriously. And by "seriously", I don't mean relying on stock guards. Examine the procedures, and decide whether the stock guard *really* makes a cut safer. Don't forget that the manufacturer's lawyers really don't care if you're mangled, just that they're relatively immune from liability if you remove a poorly designed guard to make a simple cut.
Kevin
Kevin Craig wrote in news:030620041346352278% snipped-for-privacy@pobox.com:
Kevin's right about the safety. The best advice is to think it ALL the way through, and look for where something could go wrong. The only problems I've ever had woodworking (or elsewhere, really) were when I ignored that little voice....
By the way, the genetic response is probably environmental ;-) Problem solvers, 'do-ers', builders, artists, helpers, teachers, etc. all bring a host of followers along with them, as they porceed through their lives. And we are all blessed because of it.
My dad doesn't understand much of what I do for a living, but he knows very well why I'm successful at it, because he and Mom, and those before them, were living examples of those principles.
Patriarch
My Dad.
Plastics.
UA100
Purple plastics.
Norm. Woodworking magazines. Asking the staff at Woodcraft, Boise. Trial and error. More trial and error. A lot of trial and error. Norm.
Keeter, you're a sick man.
'course, that's a lot of what I like about you.....
Bridger
The first 100 editions of a magazine Woodsmith.
Graybeard Phil
Books, magazines, the web & 'wreck, and a few classes.
Keep trying.
Barry
It's all ball bearings these days.
Seems to me, you already understand the most important lesson. Working wood is an infinite phenomenon, the apprenticeship lifelong. I learned my trade on paper first, as an architectural designer for a third-generation store fixture manufacturer. It is easy to own the tools, but knowing what to build is damn hard. Pencil and paper may be the most valuable tools in your shop. A world renowned architect, Charles Gwathney, told Charlie Rose that to acheive quality of design, you have to assimilate with the eye and articulate with the hand...what could be a better description of man working wood?
Now that's g'dam funny! Thanks for the laff.
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