DAY ONE has finally arrived. The morning was hot, humid, and densely gray. Peter Korn started class out with a short lecture getting us acquainted with the material we'll be working with, WOOD. He gave a brief overview of Basic forestry, what woods are the hardest hardwoods (Ebony and Rosewood), what the difference is between hardwood and softwood, how you can cut wood (flatsawn, quartersawn, riftsawn), how a tree grows (reach for the stars) and how to read grain. We spent the rest of the day milling a piece of wood flat, square, and parallel, honing our chisels, and attending the Monday night slide show by Garrett Hack and David Savage (If you know anything about woodworking your jaw just dropped). Both of the men come with a huge resume of experience and notoriety, more later.
I have learned a lot in this one day, but more importantly I've been inspired by everyone here. Anyway here is the rundown on what you'll learn on the first day.
#1: Rags that have oil in them can spontaneously combust. (Pistachio's too).
#2: Sneaking up on flatness is not nearly as fun as sneaking up on straightness.
#3: Flattening the backs of chisels is about as exciting as watching grass grow but requires 100 times more work on your part. To be honest the satisfaction of finally getting the chisel near perfect is well worth the aggravating redundancy. I say near perfect because after spending around 8 hours honing my first chisel there are still imperfections, but PK and our great TA's, Kendrick and Aaron, have reassured me that over time the chisel will become better and better.
This is the 1" chisel. I purchased a set of 6 Two Cherries Brand Chisels from the school cheaper than everywhere else I've looked.
This is Daniel, Honer extraordinaire/perfectionist. While I was on my 8th hour working a very dull finish to the hardly flattened 1" Chisel, he was outside signaling the international space station with the mirror finish he polished up on his.
Getting that bevel just right.
Getting a hallow bevel.
Philosophy #1: PK's attitude towards work is proof that woodworking should be precise, practical, and most of all fun. During his demonstrations, which can take some time, we're encouraged to tell jokes. So far I've only heard one joke, I'm guessing everyone else's jokes are as disgusting as mine and they're keeping their mouths shut. Which could make for a very interesting last day.
Inspiration #1: The slide show was pretty unbelievable. Garrett Hack is living the life that can only be described as perfect and may be the life I would most like to model mine after. No I won't go to Princeton and study English (don't quote me on the English part) and no I'm not going to move to Vermont and buy a Clydesdale to pull me across the snow so that I can chop down a tree to make my next piece of furniture. BUT, I would love to live on and work a small farm (his is a blueberry farm), work for a magazine, travel extensively teaching, and knock out a few items of heirloom quality furniture. Hands down Garrett has the most serene sounding lifestyle. Aside from farming blueberries, he grows most of his families vegetables, He also has 3 cows one for milking, one for meat, and a baby cus they're cute. There is one horse who he uses to mow his acreage. After the grass is dry he enjoys racking it into crop circles, that's so alien.
Inspiration #2: David Savage's slide show was a great introduction for someone like me who doesn't know much about woodworking. He covered British and Irish woodworkers from 2000-present. Most of David's slide show focused on the design aspect of woodworking introducing to me people like John Makepeace, the Barnsley Workshop, and David Colwell. There were many more but I didn't take notes, these were the names that stood out to me along with an Irish guy who's name I wish I could remember.
Needless to say it has been a big day, and this post is getting quite lengthy. I could keep writing, but I have to get home before dark so I don't have to relive the terrifying experience of walking down a pitch black road like I did yesterday. Luckily a classmate dropped me off just a quarter mile away from where I'm staying, or I might have ended up sleeping at the school. Here's a picture of that walk home.
Seriously that's a photograph of the walk home and exactly what it looked like.
I also saw a porcupine on the side of the road. It had its tongue out and walked like a robot. Awesome!
One last thing before I go. Over dinner my housemate told me her horse was addicted to drugs. I laughed then she told me about Cribbing. This crazy thing that horses do to get high. They bite down on something then huff and it squeezes some gland releasing endorphins. As funny as it originally sounded it's really sad.
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