Sawdust on the Floor

Not every woodworker has a shop like Norm Abrams, or builds a project totally using hand tools like Roy Underhill.  Most of us have modest shops and use a combination of power tools and hand tools in our woodworking endeavors.  The size and complexity of our projects run the entire gambit from small boxes to complete kitchen rebuilds. But even with all of these differences, I truly believe that there are some truths that all of us who enjoy woodworking hold tightly . And there are some things that no real woodworker never wants to see, such as:

My wife I visited a classic furniture store looking for night stands for our bedroom.  While my wife was talking to the salesperson, I began looking closely at one item that had caught our eye. I had overheard the salesperson tell my wife that the piece was first quality and made of all hardwood.  So taking a closer look at the piece I found two things that woodworker never wants to see.  First the piece was made of particle board with a laminate over it.  My first clue was the weight of the piece.  I could barely pick it up.  Real wood, oak in this case, wouldn’t ever weight that much. The second item I found was what really got me going.  Looking at the drawers of the night stand, I found what looked like dovetail joinery.  I thought this was really odd, why go to the trouble of making dovetails in a particle/laminate piece of furniture.  A real close look at the piece showed that the dovetails were imprinted into the laminate of the drawer.  They were not real, just a poor copy.  We left the store and the ” Real Wood Piece”  sitting there.

Or

I recently picked up a woodworking magazine that featured a really nice looking Craftsman style display as one of the projects covered in that edition.  The case was made of absolutely beautiful quarter sawn oak, the design and scaling of the piece were really great.  The workmanship that I could see in the pictures that accompanied the article was superb.  The problem with the project was in the through tenons that attached the top and bottom shelves of the case.  They weren’t.  Reading the article and looking at the cutting list, I found that the tenons were false, they were simply glued to the case of the piece.

Cutting real through mortises and tenons takes practice and the right tools, but why go to the expense of using quarter sawn oak, to fabricate the piece and then apply “false through tenons.  One of the joys of building true craftsman pieces is cutting the mortise and tenon joinery.  False or applied through tenons is another one of those things that a real woodworker doesn’t want to see.

Are these real issues or just my opinion?  That’s a question you will have to decide. For now they are strictly my humble opinion, but I think that these two items should fall under the “truth in advertising rules.  Painted dovetails and applied through tenons  are things that a real woodworker shouldn’t ever see.

Like a lot of woodworkers, I am always looking for sources for information on one of my favorite subject, Woodworking.  One of those sources of that information is the multitude of woodworking magazines that are published each month.  I don’t subscribe to any of these magazines on monthly basis but instead I tend to purchase the ones that contain articles that are of interest to me.  Just like most things in life, some of these magazines are better then others.  Out of all those published, “Fine Woodworking” has always been on somewhat of a pedestal for me.  The articles in the magazine are normally chocked full of useful information.  Articles that help woodworkers improve their skills as woodworkers.   Articles that inspire woodworkers.   That’s why I was very surprised by an article in the December 2009 issue on” How to Handle Plywood”, by Gregory Paolini. 

I don’t know exactly what I was expecting out of the article, perhaps information on how to safely cut full sheets of plywood in a one man or woman shop.  Or maybe something on how to finish plywood so that it doesn’t end up looking like… well plywood with stain on it.  Instead the article had gems such as “you will need a truck to get full size sheets of plywood home from the store” Or “slide the sheets off of the racks at the store onto sheet rock carts”.  To me this is not information, these things are common sense. The article did contain useful information on using a cross cut sled for cutting plywood on the tablesaw, or using a router and straight edge to produce a clean cut on plywood that has been rough cut with a circular saw. 

Now I don’t blame Mr. Paolini, his article had to meet the requirements of the editorial staff at the magazine.  After all they, not the author set the tone of the articles.  Hopefully, this is not the direction that the magazine is headed. Looking at Mr. Paolini’s other articles and his workmanship I acknowledge that he is a skilled and informed craftsman so the tenure of the article surprised me. 

You know I have been thinking about the article, I do know what I was hoping to see in the article.  There are a couple of newer products on the market such as the EZee-Feed system that helps the one man shops to cut plywood in an accurate and safe manner.  Or the Gorilla Gripper  that is used for hauling plywood from your truck to your shop.  To me those are products that help in handling plywood.