Is Roy Underhill a klutz?

[Joe]

Every time a close-up of his hands doing something is shown, he has 2 or 3 smashed blue finger nails.

[ToolMiser]

It's all makeup!

[Mark & Shauna]

Hehehe, he is definately not a user of "Palmolive" if you remember that ad. I have always noticed that too but I enjoy the fact that he is on TV as my hands have looked like that occasionally. Nothing worse than seeing a set of manicured nails running an antique jointing plane. It kinda goes against the grain.

Mark

Joe wrote:

[Dan]

On Tue 05 Aug 2003 08:47:31p, Mark & Shauna wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Where are you folks watching this guy? I've been begging our local PBS station to bring him back. I even bought the Red Green CD...

Dan

[Mark & Shauna]

We have only been in our current location for a year and just found him on WV PBS Saturday afternoons. Its great that they put all the shows in a block, TOH, NYW, RWS, TVG, WRS, etc... however we miss them a lot because if the sun is shinning we are not infront of the TV and we dont tape them. I just read a post in another thread from Charlie Self that some of Underhills funding was cut which will be sad. Hope its not enough to affect his show... Dunno...

Mark

[ChairMan]

not to mention, all the tools he ever uses are hand or foot powered tools. I don't think I could take an adz to a chunk of tree and make a usable piece of material.

[Mark & Juanita]

... and always seems to manage to cut or nick himself when doing a project. :-)

[Charlie Self]

I don't know the level of funding Woodcraft supplied, but it IS sad, not "will be" sad.

The cut was made about a year ago.

Charlie Self

"The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants." George W. Bush

[George]

Roy is a re-creational woodworker. Norm is a recreational woodworker.

If you're process over product, you'll favor Roy.

What is that old saying - "work smarter, not harder?" Seems to favor Norm.

So who is the real poseur?

[Sam Schmenk]

I can't say that I remember that episode, but I do recall watching a show where he nicked himself and didn't stop working. As I musician, I appreciate the "live" taping concept. In the recording studio, the amateur can work for hours on perfecting something a real pro can do "live" in one take. This is called t-a-l-e-n-t. Some have it, some don't. And Roy oozes it (pun intended).

I have the upmost respect for Roy. His shows have taught me many things. I now realize traditional woodworkers were forced with product delivery constraints (sell/trade it or starve), large volumes of manual labor machines perform with ease (hand sawing/planing), and most of all, respect for hand tools (you don't need Norm's shop to work with wood).

I hope a new sponsor realizes the large following he as and brings in new funding.

SS

[Mike]

When you work like Roy, you get cuts, scrapes, blisters, and smashed fingers; it comes with the territory. When my hands look like Roys (and they have in the past), I know I'm putting in some honest work. As I look at my hands right now, there's almost no calluses and just a couple tiny cuts/scrapes. Crikey, I might as well go buy a dress!

Cheers, Mike

[WCD]

You think flying a desk is not dangerous? I've done my time on the mean streets of drafting departments all over this country!

Did you ever get a paper cut from blueprint paper and then pull a print out of the printer with ammonia all over it? Those blue-collar working guys have nothin' on us when it comes to pain!

;-}

[JackD]

Roy shows how common woodworking problems have been handled historically. Norm shows how a laser chop saw cuts. I already know how to use a chop saw, but different approaches to problems are always interesting.

I do. Are you saying that the techniques shown by Roy are not capable of producing fine furniture or woodwork? If we go to the hall of fine woodworking and remove any furniture made with pneumatically fired brads and which has never seen the light of a laser we are still left with 99.999999% of it.

Norm works smarter? He spends a week taping a show. Roy finishes his in a half hour and then can go take a shower and have a beer. Of course he probably is wracking his brain all week to come up with stupid puns.

I admit I am being a bit extreme here. They both do solve problems, but in my opinion Roy is more entertaining, more educational and more inspirational than Norm.

-Jack

[ranck]

Uh, Norm builds a whole object, usually a more complex one than Roy's typical project, and starts from raw lumber. Roy shows the techniques to accomplish a given project, but never finishes, and notice he has two or three partially completed items sitting around so he can skip over some time-consuming steps. Roy has a do-it-all-in-one-take policy for his show. No edits, no retakes, you see all the mistakes and slips as they happened. Considering that, Roy does a heck of a good job in a half hour show, but clearly he spends a lot of time researching, setting up, making a test piece, making some partially complete pieces and planning what things to show before the lights and camera start working. Norm builds a proto-type, experiments with techniques, plans what things to show, but also probably does retakes and obviously his show is edited, not a one-take. I would not want to make a bet on who puts in more time and effort for a show.

I enjoy both. Roy is more "fun" in a way, but Norm is more likely to be building something I might actually want to build. Not that I dislike Roy's stuff, just a lot of it is not stuff I would want to build. I do enjoy the historical aspects and seeing how things can be done with old hand tools. I'm just more likely to apply a Roy technique to a Norm project than the other way around.

Bill Ranck Blacksburg, Va.

[George]

You're not extreme? You've set up your own straw man to hit.

I would never have used words as foolish as you have attempted to put in my mouth.

inspirational

[Michael Baglio]

What? Roy Underhill is past Master Housewright at Colonial Williamsburg. To try to reason _any_ thing about his ability or talent from what you see on "The Woodwright's Shop" is futile.

Don't confuse style with content. Underhill has forgotten more about woodcraft in all its forms than any 50 of us will ever know.

(Except Tom Planman, of course. But I'm not counting him because I'm still convinced Tom Planman is really 6 people in one body.) :)

Michael Baglio Chapel Hill

[John Grossbohlin]

Actually, Roy is pretty much of a wise-ass all the time... I worked at Colonial Williamsburg in the past and at various times shared housing with a housewright, a couple blacksmiths, an interpreter, and an archeologist. The archeologist was a woman and she was best of friends with Roy's wife Jane. My lady friend's kid was at Roy's and Roy's kids at our place on a near daily basis. I had my share of opportunities to hear him in action. ;-)

John

[Bruce Bowler]

Michael, I think you missed George's intent - go back and read his note carefully and subtly. "re-creational" is NOT recreational. I think it was meant as a compliment...

[Michael Baglio]

And I, apparently, didn't. My apologies, George; I'll practice reading the black parts. ;>

Michael Baglio Chapel Hill

[Silvan]

I used to watch his show all the time when I was a kid, and used to watch TV. The stuff that guy can do with no electricity is amazing.

I just had a thought though. Those guys back yonder were using metal saws and metal spokeshaves and metal plane irons and whatnot. That was still high tech, relatively speaking.

I wonder what people did for furniture during the stone age... Gotta flake that flint just right so you can make a cutter for your wood shaver. :)