Greetings from the swamps of Southwest Georgia,
I've been lurking around the porch for a few months now and decided it was time
to come on up. (Also Roger Birkhead has been threatening to publicly humiliate
me in front of all you Gentle Galoots if I didn't post my bio). So here it is
...
I am twenty-five and but a youngster in the working of wood. My father never had
a workshop, never did any woodworking. Nor my father's father. Nor my mother'
s father. Nor any neighbors. My junior high school didn't even have a shop cla
ss.
In college I would on occasion help friends with various home repair projects,
but just rough stuff like cutting 2x4's to length with a skilsaw. Living my s
enior year in an old, restored hewn log house (ca. 1850), I began to appreciate
the craftsmanship that went into such construction. Here was a house 140 years
old that had been abandoned for decades prior to restoration, and yet its hug
e timbers of chestnut and oak remained strong, its half-dovetail joints still
tight. I knew after my first night there that I would live in my own hewn log
house, and that I wanted to do the restoration myself. I just didn't know how
I would do this. That its construction was accomplished using only hand tools
was simply outside of my realm of comprehension.
After college I went to live in Nepal, ostensibly to do agricultural research.
My work there took me to many remote villages, sometimes a week or more hike
from the nearest road. In the absence of electricity, power tools were scarce.
Over the course of that year, I saw and occasionally used (much to the amusemen
t of my Nepali compadres) all sorts of handtools, mainly agricultural - plows,
digging tools, harvesting blades. Yet throughout all of that exposure, I neve
r, while living there, made the connection between their work with handtools a
nd my taking that experience back to the U.S. My life in Nepal and my life in
America I viewed as distinct and separate, though I don't now know why. It was
not until I moved to Southwest Georgia, the Ninth Circle of Oldtool Hell, tha
t I started working with wood. It was an epiphany of sorts. While talking with
a friend and dedicated normie about the furniture he had crafted, he offered
my the use of his t*bl* s*w and carpentry know-how. Even with all of the recen
t years' experience I was still firmly entrenched in the mindset that furnitur
e was something you buy. It comes from a furniture store. Sort of like, vegeta
bles come from a grocery store. In that one epochal moment my world and self v
iew were expanded. I set to work.
Half a dozen picture frames later I began to notice something missing. More t
han the perceived threat to my extemities, when working on the t*bl* s*w I felt
out of control, frantic, rushed. It seemd the s*w was running the show, and I
was merely an usher. It's screaming noise, clouds of dust, frenetic pace. I try
not to live my life in this way, so why engage in such a pursuit? The 'why' is
because I enjoy working with the wood. The how just seemed imperfect. That's
when I started talking to Roger. He got me started with handtools, steered me
to the porch, and has been a great source of information and practical know-ho
w. I knew after my first pass with a plane that I had found that for which I h
ad been searching.
I awoke this past Monday, after a full weekend's work, scarcely able to lift my
arms they were so sore. To watch me plane is not unlike listening to a novice
play the violin. But I'm having fun and every once in a while I'll hit that
groove as a long strip of wood peels smoohtly away....
Kevin Watt
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