Over the last couple of years it seems to me that there has been a great increase in the number of people who are joining the ranks of the hobbyist woodworker. Here on the net, there are many websites where folks show off their handywork. There are any number of woodworking forums where amateurs and not so amateurs go to discuss their hobby and to help each other with problems and how-tos. What has created this renewed interest in woodworking?
I have some thoughts on the subject, and, you guessed it, I'm gonna impart them now. So many of the things we buy are made with the idea that they will be replaced within the next few years or even months. Real wood furniture has become a thing of the past, at least that which we buy in the typical furniture store. Particle board with plastic veneer is generally what you find, even in the so called "upscale" stores. We are expected to remodel our homes on a continuing basis, and when we remodel, we throw out the old furniture and buy new.
Time was that furniture was something that was passed down from one generation to the next. We see that type of furniture in antique stores. Furniture that is two and three hundred years old. That furniture was made one piece at a time. You didn't go down to your local furniture store, you went directly to the craftsman and told him what you wanted, a piece or two at a time. Then you lived with that piece of furniture and when your kids grew up and moved on to their own lives, they took a few pieces with them.
I think that a lot of the people getting into woodworking are looking for timeless pieces. They are tired of replacing furniture that falls apart about the time that they are finished paying for it. They want to renew that connection with future generations. They want a piece that they can look at 40 or 50 years down the road and remember when little junior put that scratch on it, or spilled that paint on it. They want to have memories in their furniture. You don't get that with particle board and plastic veneer. You get it with a scroll saw project.
Something I have noticed from spending time on the forums is that a very high percentage of the people just entering this hobby are Information Technology professionals. That could be because the forums are on the internet and thats where IT people hang out. It could be the engineering connection, too. I've seen threads on woodworking forums in which physics and engineering terminology is tossed about like so much sawdust. Ask about whether to get a 6" dado set or an 8" one and you're liable to learn more about mechanical physics than you ever wanted to know.
But I think it goes deeper than that. I think that IT people hunger for creation of something in the real world, not just in the world of bits and bytes and networking and artificial intelligence. They want to make something that they can hold in their hands. And they want to go back and study the methods of of their fathers and grandfathers. They want to know about oil finishes and old varnishes. The poly finishes of today are not satisfying their search for beauty. They want to learn about hand planes, and scrapers and hand rubbed finishes. There is an essence of quality in the old finishes that they can't find in the new ones. They want to experience the days before sandpaper, and power tools when so much was done with skills that take years to perfect. They want to hand cut dovetails, and joint the edge of a board with a Number 7 Stanley jointing plane.
And the Engineers want that too. Folks go to school for years and years to become Engineers to be in on the design and development of things. I've heard more than one Engineer complain that they are really not doing what they dreamed of. Many are in administrative positions and things are so complex that everyone works on such miniscule parts of the whole, that they don't get the creative bug quenched and turn to making things as a hobby. Never cut anything with a compound miter saw.
And the web sites out there are fantastic. Anything you want to know about any aspect of woodworking can be found out there with just a couple minutes on a search engine. And the information is generally free. Even the tool makers and the retailers selling stuff for woodworking are setting up demo sites and sponsoring forums, and they pretty much let the forums go where they may. Sure, they've got little pop-up advertisements, but most are not so obnoxious as to interfere with getting what you want from the location. And the magazine sites, another fantastic source of how-tos.
One of these days I'm gonna connect a bunch of my favorite links here, but there are so many that it will be a daunting task. My favorites are the sites put up by individuals. I like to look at what other folks are doing, and how they are doing it. Everything out there is so freely given. And like me, I think it is an ego thing. It's neat to be on one of the forums and have someone ask a question about how to do something and to be able to drop a ling to one of my pages and say, "Hey, I got just the thing you're looking for over here at my web site. Go on over and have a look." Woodworkers have a fairly small audience for their projects outside of the net, and I think most want to give back what they have learned to others. Even the few who have the talent and tenacity to make a living out of a small shop doing custom work freely give of their knowledge and, more importantly, their time. I think this giving is a cultural thing in the woodworking culture going back to the days not so long ago when a furniture or cabinet maker, or any of the dozens of other specialized trades involving the making of things from wood, learned their trade at the shoulder of a master.
And it is a darn good thing that this internet thing came along when it did, because so much of the trades are already lost, and more is lost every day as the masters go off to that great big wood shop in the sky, taking with them the secrets passed down from master to apprentice over generations of people who have found joy in smelling fresh cut cedar or walnut or oak.
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