Ranto de Mayo

In honor of the lovely spring weather we’ve been having, I’ve decided to take a few minutes to complain about some more things woodworking that mildly upset me. So here goes nothing…

When I’m Master of the woodworking universe…
Woodworking writers won’t be allowed to claim that you can set up a hand tool workshop with just 100 square feet of space. I tried to woodwork in an area roughly 10 feet x 10 feet over the weekend and the only thing I accomplished was cursing for thirty minutes. It doesn’t work; it’s complete bullshit used to sucker people into purchasing “How to set up shop” books and magazines. Ever notice that in every one of those magazines there isn’t an actual 100 square foot shop being shown anywhere? As a matter of fact, most of the shops pictured, including the hand tool shops, are quite spacious to say the least. Even the famed Dominy family workshop, the gold standard for the small but incredible woodworking shop, is well more than double the size of the mythical small but perfectly suited to woodworking in every way without taking up any space workshop that these books claim anybody can obtain. When you are woodworking, you need every square inch you can possibly come up with, and the more of it the better. I’ve never, ever heard a woodworker say his shop was just too darn big. Maybe somebody, somewhere, has uttered that phrase, but I’ve never heard it. Of course in theory you can have a woodworking shop in a 10 x 10 room. In theory I could also take that same room and add a GPS, a few lights, and a CB radio and call it an airport, but I guarantee you that nobody is landing a plane there.

When I’m Master of the woodworking universe…
Razor thin pins on a dovetail joint won’t be considered so great. I have nothing against them, and they look nice on small boxes, but I don’t see the big deal when it comes to actually sawing them. To me, a razor thin pin is more an indicator of a well-set and sharp saw than it is any skill in actually sawing the joint. They are no more difficult to saw than any other dovetail, and in some ways they are impractical as I believe they would weaken the joint, especially in a larger case. They are probably suited to smaller boxes more than anything. OF course you could use them on a drawer, but why go through the trouble when they won’t be seen, and probably aren’t as strong as a joint with wider pins. I’ve seen them used on drawers most. I say that they are least suited to that application because a drawer’s dovetail joint probably gets stressed the most. I’ve read that you can reinforce it with a nail or a dowel. I say the better solution is to saw your pins wider and let the joint do what it was meant to do, and that is to add actual strength to a case, not just decorate it.

When I’m Master of the woodworking universe…
Woodworking books won’t suck. I’ve read my fair share of woodworking books, not thousands like some people, but near a hundred or so. I probably own close to seventy-five myself. Maybe ten percent of them are what I would call really good, perhaps 10 more percent are okay, and the rest will most likely never be opened again. For the most part, woodworking books are all filled with the same tedious information that was has been rehashed from tedious information written a century ago. There is next to zero new information being published anymore; it’s just the same stuff said a different way. I’ve mentioned before that I’m waiting for that one book to really blow me away. I haven’t found it; not even close. I realize that there is never going to be one all encompassing woodworking book. I’m not asking for the impossible. I’m just looking for any one book to be really great. The topic could be anything: sharpening, joinery, tools…anything! The only woodworking book I’ve read that I would consider calling great is The Pine Furniture of Early New England by Russell Hawes Kettell and that was published more than eighty years ago. Some may say that there are great woodworking books out there, I’m just not reading the right ones. I say that they are correct, because some of the so-called acclaimed stuff I have read isn’t great; it’s not even good, and some of it downright sucked.


If I offended anybody I’m not sorry; this is a rant afterall…