Roots: Wisdom in the Woodshop
Welcome to the second part of my Roots blog. I hope you are enjoying these segments as much as I am enjoying writing them. It has been a great way for me to reflect on the past projects, trials, lessons, and experiences I’ve had over the years. I hope this serves as a way for you to hopefully avoid those mistakes that I made in my youth and to hopefully entertain you as well. In this installment, I’ll continue the story of how I got into woodworking, focusing on a few big projects I made, the mentors I had through it, and how those mentorships helped shape my craft to this day.
It was April of 2016. I had spent the whole senior year in the woodshop. I skipped all the sports I played just so I could focus on refining my work. Whether before morning classes, post afternoon classes, or even on the weekends, I was in the school shop.
Not too much had changed from when I left off in the last blog. I still used an abhorrent amount of nails for my projects. I refused to use wood glue because my broken logic said, “houses are nailed together not glued; therefore, nails are stronger than glue.” I needed help. I needed someone to come to my side and correct me of my ways.
A requirement for seniors at the time was that they needed to complete a senior project prior to graduation. This project required a few things. There first needed to be a mentor. The mentor would guide whatever project the student was focused on. This usually revolved around what the student planned on pursuing post-graduation. This person could be a local business owner, a teacher, or really anyone. The next requirement was the time spent on the project. Seniors were given a week off to do this project. Forty hours were required for the project, just like a typical work week. In the weeks following this project, a slideshow presentation was required to show how you used that time. This was then presented to the junior class, several teachers, and the mentor. This framework was the basic requirements for the senior project.
Through this I met my mentor, Norm. Norm was a retired furniture maker in the valley. He had done it for the majority of his career, starting it as a hobby initially like so many others. I had called Norm to see if I could meet up with him and have him mentor me on a project. He graciously accepted and invited me up to his shop. I toured his shop in the mountains above where I grew up. It was a blast. There he showed me the portfolio of pictures from many past projects, stories behind every single one. He showed me the various tools he had acquired over the years, the jigs that he had built to make the building process more accurate and efficient. He had a great stash of wood as well, with many slabs of Beetle Kill Lodgepole Pine. For those unfamiliar, Beetle Kill Pine is caused by a fungus that is carried on beetles. When these beetles attack a tree, the fungi is introduced. It stains the wood, leaving behind blue streaks on the once white grain. It makes for beautiful lumber.
At the end of the tour, Norm proceeded to give me all the milled wood for the project. It was a very generous thing to do. I had not expected it. He also provided me with templates and plans that he used for the trestle styled base. These templates could be traced on the pieces of wood, then cut out using a bandsaw. A plan was made, and it was all starting to come together.
Having the wood, templates, and general directions meant that I was ready to start the project. I first started by milling all the wood for the top. I wanted to get the top done first, so that the glue could cure for 24 hours. This is where I ran into a few issues. First, I cut the boards to their final size before gluing up. The reason this is a mistake is simple. When gluing up a top, there is little friction with the glue on all the edges. If you are not careful when applying pressure, that wood can slide around. A simple fix is to ensure the clamps are perfectly perpendicular to the wood when clamping. Using a biscuit jointer can also help line up all the slabs. It won’t fully eliminate the wood sliding around, but it certainly helps keep everything in order.
Another mistake here was not accounting for snipe. Snipe is caused when extra material is removed from a board going through a planer. This can be caused by a twisted or unstable board, uneven pressure from the rollers, or the lack of support tables on the infeed and outfeed side. I believe it was the lack of support tables in my case. I borrowed a lunchbox planer from my dad. I fed the boards through the machine and didn’t support the boards on the infeed or outfeed side as well as I should have. Not supporting the wood caused the planer knives to cut deeper into both ends for a few inches on each side, which added extra time when it came to sanding. Since the wood was at final length, I couldn’t just cut off the snipe.
Nowadays I just add a few inches to the final size of a glue-up. I can simply trim the edges after the glue-up ensuring no snipe remains and the ends are perfectly squared up. I also use a planer with infeed and out feed tables. I currently run an Oliver 10045, which is a beast of a benchtop planer. I have almost no snipe and the snipe that I do have is just trimmed off. I’ve been running it for about four months, and it has lived up every expectation I’ve had for it. Maybe I’ll make a more detailed review of it down the road. But for now, back to my senior project.
Another mistake was made. I had miscut the board that was to be used as the middle rail on the trestle base. Sometimes happy accidents lead to creative solutions and improved designs. I couldn’t bring myself to tell Norm because he had already given me so much wood for the project. I ended up driving in the mountains, looking for a dead branch maybe left behind from someone harvesting firewood. I was lucky enough to find a piece just a few yards from the forest service road I was on. I threw it in the back of my pickup and went back to the shop to continue. I cut the bark off it with a drawknife that had been my Great Grandpas. It didn’t turn out perfect, but I was happy with the results.
I learned lots from this table. I learned the appropriate way to mill wood from raw slabs. I also learned the importance of wood glue; how certain glues were actually stronger than the wood it was adhered to. I learned how a well-prepared joint could almost disappear when glued correctly. These small lessons made all the difference in projects moving forward. Following this dining table, I made an end table for my English teacher. Beetle Kill Pine top with barnwood legs. (Yuck) The glue joints were seamless on it. I oversized it so I could avoid dealing with uneven glue-ups and snipe. This saved a lot of time as the project was built in just a few days.
Looking back, I’m reminded of how much a mentor like Norm helped me during that week. Whether it was with selecting wood orientation in the top or deciding which finishes to use, Norm seemed to know it all. Having someone to ask questions, learn from their experiences, and lean on for guidance is an incredible advantage. They were once in that position that I am in. I think that is something important to life and not just woodworking. I’ve come to rely on mentors in many aspects of my life. Whether it’s friends I trust to critique my designs, business owners who started in positions similar to mine, or pastors I turn to when life feels overwhelming, these relationships have been a cornerstone of my growth. Without the guidance of these men and women, I know I wouldn’t be where I am today. It’s their wisdom and encouragement that help me move forward, and for that, I’ll always be grateful.
Roots
My name is Cameron. Welcome to my blog. This section of my website is to share experiences, important lessons, and some of the techniques that I have learned throughout the years. I hope this can be entertaining, as well as informative to those who go through it. I haven’t quite figured out how I will do this in terms of when I will make updates or publish articles, but for this one I want to share my roots of when I first got into this hobby, now career (Lord-willing). Thanks for tuning in and I hope you enjoy this segment!
The year was 2015. I had just started my senior year of high school. I had done some woodworking in the past, but I didn’t really go out of my way to build stuff. I had grown up tinkering with wood. I remember creating makeshift boats out of scrap 2x4s that came from my dad’s jobsites—using a dull chisel, a rubber mallet, and the leg of a workbench to act almost as a bench dog. My siblings and I had LEGO sets growing up and we also had Lincoln Logs. All my siblings had been encouraged to build things and use their imagination. Whether those creations were model rockets, paintings, or with LEGOs, building just seemed to be in our blood. And that hasn’t changed for any of us. With that as a background, I had been looking into cabinet making and fine woodworking. I didn’t really know much about it, but I wanted to learn more.
My first project that I did was a small spice cabinet for my mother. I found plans for one on the internet. It was just a small cabinet made with solid pine. The author had painted it white and then distressed it to give it an antique look. I thought it was a perfect first project. It was also a gift for my mother, so I couldn’t ask her or my father for the materials. I ended up using old, pine shelves that came from a library in the school. They were being torn out for new ones. I milled the wood to remove the yellowed, well used finish. I was left with free wood and was ready to build.
Looking back, the cabinet did not turn out great. My mother loved it so that’s all that mattered in the moment. But it didn’t close all the way. When you tried to close it, the door would pop out a quarter inch. I only had one hinge to set the door, and I was too nervous to cut a mortise for it to sit in. I ended up screwing it to the face of the door and the stile of the cabinet. The door sat crooked and felt flimsy when used. The mitered rails and stiles to the cabinet didn’t line up. The gaps in the miter cuts were massive. The whole carcass had been put together using an excessive number of 18-gauge nails. I used no glue in the project and only nails. I had the idea that nails must be stronger than wood glue because they hold houses together. This “logic” had come from the many summers of working construction for my parent’s business.
It might seem that the spice cabinet was a disaster. Sure, it had a plethora of issues. But because of this project, I became hooked with woodworking. I spent every waking hour I could in the school woodshop. Whether it was coming in early before school, staying late after, or even getting into the shop on the weekends, my extra time was well used. I made a lot of projects. Most were crafted from salvaged library shelves, barnwood from local ranches, or—on rare occasions—pallets. (Though we prefer to leave the pallet phase in the past.)
The point I’m trying to make is we learn lots from our mistakes. We shouldn’t quit something or give up the first time something doesn’t go to plan. Rather those mistakes should fuel us to grow and branch out. Sometimes trial and error can be the greatest teacher. In my early days of woodworking, that seemed to be the case. Making the mistakes on the spice cabinet made me change how I do things. The next spice cabinet had two mortised hinges instead of one slapped on the face in the middle. I wish I could say I used less nails, but I didn’t learn about the strength of glue until a number of months later. The next cabinet was milled more carefully. The cuts were more thought out. The cabinet was modified from the first one and it was drawn out prior to building.
Albert Einstein says it best. “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” As I progressed through my senior year, many mistakes were made. I remember making a coffee table with reclaimed barnwood. I had a buyer lined up for it. I was going to make money on it. Everything was looking good. I just had to do a coat of epoxy on the table and then it would be done. I did my epoxy pour and spent a few hours getting all the bubbles out of it with a heat gun. I left that night excited to be selling one of my pieces. However, I had no clue about the disaster that I would find in the morning. When I woke up the next morning, I went to check it before classes started. The cure time was 8 hours, so plenty of time had passed. I went to rub my hands on it expecting to feel the smooth surface. It was still tacky. I went to class and assumed it would be good by lunch. I checked at 12:00 and it was still tacky. Two days passed and it had not changed. As I found out later, it was because the two-part epoxy had not been mixed right. Not enough hardener was used. It was a complete loss. I couldn’t do anything about it. The piece sat for a few more days, and it ended up going to the county dump. I was irate. All this time wasted. All this material wasted. All the epoxy wasted. A gallon of Epoxy cost $50 at this time. Half of it had gone to complete waste. It was a hard lesson in the moment, but I learned the importance of mixing two-part epoxy accurately. This was one mistake I never wanted to repeat.
Every misstep sharpens technique.
We all start somewhere. Maybe it’s not woodworking. Pursuing your goals and dreams will have many trials. Just because you make a mistake doesn’t mean you should quit. Mistakes should drive us to continue learning and improving. They should fuel your growth, shaping each new attempt into something better.
What we shouldn’t do is disregard them and keep trying the same thing, expecting different or improved results. That’s delusional to think and act that way. True progress comes from reflection, adaptation, and the willingness to keep improving.