In this new podcast episode, Mike and Joshua talk about the struggle to learn new skills and ways to overcome the hurdles. The journey begins with a resolved commitment but is only carried out through regular practice.
SHOW NOTES:
VIDEO: “HOW CAN I LEARN WOODWORKING?”
VIDEO: “CULTIVATING A HABIT OF WOODWORKING”
VIDEO: “CRAFT AS A COMMITTED PRACTICE”
REGISTRATION NOW OPEN FOR THE APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM!
William Coperthwaite, A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity
Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes
The Mortise & Tenon Apprenticeship Program
We’ve had a lot going on over the last year or so and therefore, it seems appropriate to introduce ourselves afresh to those who haven’t been with us since the beginning. The following is a brief summary written to spell out the things we spend our time doing and explain why we do them. To be honest, after I finished the list, I felt a little tired: Welcome. We’re Mortise & Tenon Magazine, and we’re passionate about hand-tool woodworking. We are an independent, family-run publishing company (read: 3 families) based in rural coastal Maine. We publish our 144-page ad-free magazine twice per year (with back issues in stock). We also publish our own books about handcraft and its connection to...
You can now register for the 8-week M&T Apprenticeship Program here: https://www.mtapprenticeship.com/apprenticeship-program
If you’ve been interested in learning to work wood with hand tools, now is the time to sign up. We are going to have to cap the number of students so that we can have enough attention for folks as they work their way through the weekly assignments.
This first term begins on August 30th but sign up now before it fills up! We look forward to seeing you in the Apprenticeship!
– Joshua
Many of you have offered personal anecdotes and insightful replies to the previous videos in which we discuss the ways people can learn woodworking these days. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We’ve enjoyed discussing your comments. In this final video, Mike and I talk about the necessity of committing to a daily practice and the struggles to do this in our own lives. No one starts out with the ideal setup. Instead, we get started with make-do situations and discover what we actually need only once we’ve begun to develop the foundational skills. This past year, Mike and I have been discussing the importance of a structured, committed practice coupled with the guidance of a mentor. We’ve been developing...
My youngest boy built a box the other day. Made me think of an excellent passage from Coperthwaite: “Out of fear of misusing children, we have deprived them of the opportunity to do real work. The work of most adults is hidden from the children. Even worse, most of the adults they meet do not enjoy their work. As a result of this coercion, and the corresponding lack of opportunities for fully applied imaginations, is it any wonder that kids turn for their thrills to stimuli that are antigrowth and antisocial? Kids need to see productive work being undertaken by those around them and to be given an opportunity to take part at an early age. Useful work as...
In part two of this series, Mike and I talk about the value of having a mentor to pull on when things don’t work as smoothly at your bench as in a professional demonstration or YouTube video. It’s essential to be able to ask questions and to get specific feedback on your specific struggles. And the more woodworking becomes part of a person’s daily life, the more success they will find. We would do well to focus on cultivating craft in our normal daily routines.
In my last post, I discussed tambour doors’ history and theory, as well as describing how I routed the groove for some doors in a small hand plane till I made earlier this summer. Today, let’s talk about making slats by hand. I had some poplar from a past project sitting around that I resawed and planed down to just over 1/4" thick. I cut shallow rabbets on either end, double-checking that the slat ends would fit in the groove with a little wiggle room – I’d guess maybe 1/16". Ripping the 24 slats themselves was quicker work than I thought it’d be, especially once I found a rhythm. “Ripping by hand” is a phrase that tends to make some woodworkers...
Mike and I have been thinking all year about the ways people learn woodworking. This video covers some of the problems we’ve seen with the conventional routes.
While Colorado’s high desert climate is more tool-friendly than others, over the past few years I’ve found myself wiping off more flash rust and blowing off my metal planes more than I’d like, so I decided a plane till with doors to keep dust at bay was in order. And, because I try to tackle a new technique or operation with each new project, I wanted to see if I could make some tambour doors by hand. The word “tambour” comes from the French word for a small drum (á la “tambourine”), a fact of which I was uncomfortably reminded when I first tried feeding my door into the cabinet and it produced a terrifying, percussive grinding noise before shuddering...
