Craftsmanship - Standards

[Gary Curtis]

We had company over this morning and the talk turned to our kitchen and to handmade pieces of furniture. Though I'm proud of our kitchen, of the many solid Maple elements and the shaker style cabinetry, I thought back to earlier times when our kitchen would have earned a C+.

My dad was a machinist, and I remember him telling me as a child --- shortly after WW II --- of his final project as an apprentice. He worked for the large metal fabricator A.O. Smith in Milwaukee. His final project as an apprentice was to fashion a 4 or 5" steel ball out of a billet. He had to do this using hand tools only.

As a journalist and editor, I bought some pretty high quality typesetting and printing. I remember a seminar where a printer talked about his apprenticeship in Scotland. His apprentice test involved his foreman taking a handful of 8 pt type and he had to identify the font of each piece. And each was a period. A simple dot. The same size as today's New York Times (which may be slightly larger at 9pts).

And I just marvel what those earlier generations could do with by eye;). I'm both inspired and intimidated.

[John A. Callaway]

I think it is things like this that draw people ( me ) to people like Krenov and maloof...charlesworth.... these guys had ( have ) a romantic love affair with the raw materials and the tools they use. I have read Krenov's books twice already and am reading them on round three now...

[Richard Magbanua]

The craftsmanship and standards of the early days is impressive, yes. But as I spend time looking at furniture built today by many current craftsmen and women in person and on the internet I know that such skill still exists. Thanks to sites like Sawmill Creek and the great teachers who participate here we can keep it all going.

[Mark Baldwin III]

To pass my machine shop class in at the end of my senior year in high school, I had to build a drill press vise. It involved hand and machine operations, precision lay out, and other operations that a machinist would need to learn. I didn't go on to become a machinist, but I learned tons. That vise...and the arbor press I made that year are still in use almost 15 years later. I was given .002" tolerance on all of my measurements. Which is pretty darned close for a second year student!
Although I know why they used to make the apprentice file a ball from billet, it still never made sense to me. Tell the apprentice to make the vises and other small tools that he's going to use for the rest of his career!

[john brenton]

The coolest one I heard of was the german apprenticship whereupon completion you'd head out as homeless as Jesus Christ only with a frame saw instead of the gospel.

That charcter is precisely what's missing in society today. If I hadn't gone into the trades I don't know where id be.It would be cynical and ignorant for me to say it has dissapeared completely, but for the most part its true. too much comfort and "academia" have resulted in the youth of today being skilled at things like button pushing and political correctness. A few generations ago our fathers said "no son of mine is going to turn a wrench like I did, he's going to college!". Well, his son learned how to smoke doobs, protest traditional America, chase ambulances and ruin his marriage.

I'm 29, and in my woodshop class I only got to use a router...ONCE...with dull bits....on a piece of wet pine lumber. I sure learned how not to offend sensitive people though. If "not hurting peoples feelings" was a skill I'd be a master.

We're all bringing it back though. One day if the SHTF all of us in our neander shops will be ahead of the game...and if it doesn't at least our kids will look back on memories of us on a bow lathe or a shavehorse and have that connection. We're all keeping tradition alive.

[Tom Vanzant]

Mark,
I made a similar vise in 1959. I still have it and still use it, but not on the drill-press. I get a warm feeling every time. Has it been that long?

[Marv Werner]

I totally agree with you about wasting the time of an apprentice making a ball out of a chunk of steel when he/she could be making something useful and actually learning more aspects of the trade, whatever it might be.

[Bill Houghton]

Even in areas of lesser skill, when hand skills were required, we had to develop them.

I started at the university where I worked for 30 years as the receptionist, back in the typewriter days. Our director allowed three corrected errors in a letter, but they had to be invisibly corrected (I generally made my fourth error on the second to last line). I was the office master of dabbing on the correction fluid so it wasn't lumpy and aligning the paper so that the correct character overtyped the erroneous one perfectly.

Now, the computer fixes the misteaks, and, when you find one, you just reprint the letter. No manual skills required, so they're getting lost. Not sure I could still do that if I had to, at least not without practice.

[george wilson]

I must have removed many cubic inches of metal with a file as a youth in my self imposed apprenticeship.

In Germany the apprentice was given a lump of steel,and he had to file it into a perfect cube to the master's satisfaction. While he was doing that,he had to make his own files. THEN,he was ready to actually begin learning to make guns.

In Holland,an apprentice moved in with the master's family,and worked for 7 years. He made a harpsichord,which became the master's property to sell,to repay the room and board. The harpsichord had to pass the inspection of the guild,too. Then,journeymanship was granted.

In Williamsburg,a 7 year apprenticeship is the norm. Then,the apprentice can move to journeyman's pay scale. The starting pay is miserably low.

[Marv Werner]

Bill,

Awwwww, the good old days!! Such memories.

When I was 12 years old, my Dad put me to work off-bearing the head-rig in his sawmill and I fed the cants into the edger. No apprenticeship for me. About the only thing he told me was, don't touch that big saw blade.

[Jim Koepke]

As a journalist and editor, I bought some pretty high quality typesetting and printing. I remember a seminar where a printer talked about his apprenticeship in Scotland. His apprentice test involved his foreman taking a handful of 8 pt type and he had to identify the font of each piece. And each was a period. A simple dot. The same size as today's New York Times (which may be slightly larger at 9pts).

This is actually easier than it sounds. I did some metal type setting when I was young. Each type face has identifying nicks along the bottom edge. This is the edge that will be pointing up when when the type is set in the stick. It helps to let the person setting type know if a piece from a wrong font got mixed in.

A person who has been paying attention while setting type can look at the nicks and tell you what font it came from.

Of course, trying to get today's work force interested in such a thing is a different story.

To many people are content with getting paid for doing mediocre work.

jtk

[John Coloccia]

Yet, today you can find beautiful examples of fine craftsmanship today while antique stores are full of garbage made by blind monkeys with a broken hand. I hear what everyone is saying, but I really think that the guys at the top of their game today blow away what we were doing 50 or 100 years ago. It makes my wonder how, since no one really does apprenticeships anymore. Must be a lot of folks like my that learn by bumbling around, screwing things up left and right for 10 or 15 years until we accidentally stumble upon the right way to do something.

[John Neel]

Even in areas of lesser skill, when hand skills were required, we had to develop them.

I started at the university where I worked for 30 years as the receptionist, back in the typewriter days. Our director allowed three corrected errors in a letter, but they had to be invisibly corrected (I generally made my fourth error on the second to last line). I was the office master of dabbing on the correction fluid so it wasn't lumpy and aligning the paper so that the correct character overtyped the erroneous one perfectly.

Now, the computer fixes the misteaks, and, when you find one, you just reprint the letter. No manual skills required, so they're getting lost. Not sure I could still do that if I had to, at least not without practice.

I took less than a semester of typing in high school before my family moved to another school district. My typing skills were miserable all through college. Even with erasable paper I could not produce clean copy. In graduate school I began to use a keypunch and my keyboarding improved a bit so that I didn't have to correct too many cards. When word processing came along my keyboarding got even better. As another effect, my spelling improved because I got instant feedback from the spelling checker. The point is that some skills can improve with technology.

I can make better dovetails with a router and jig, but I like my hand cut ones more. I think that is a function of appreciating skills rather than appreciating the best work.

There is an old book, "The Saber-Tooth Curriculum", that educators used to read. In the book, prehistoric students are taught 'fish catching with the hands' and 'scaring saber tooth tigers with torches' even though nets have made catching with the hands obsolete and there is only one saber-tooth tiger left. Of course the book is about curriculum and deciding what is appropriate to teach students. It's not about loving to catch fish with the hands. Still, it sometimes has me wondering if I really am a neanderthal when I like the hand cut ones more. And maybe if I practice just a bit more and get that new saw . . .

[Sean Hughto]

I can make better dovetails with a router and jig, but I like my hand cut ones more. I think that is a function of appreciating skills rather than appreciating the best work.

How do you define "better," John? Are the handcut ones weaker? I think the "best work" is the work that folks like more while providing sufficient strength and function.

Machine precision is sterile. Hand wrought fitting has soul. And I'm not talking about appreciating skills; I'm talking about to the eye.

[David Keller NC]

I totally agree with you about wasting the time of an apprentice making a ball out of a chunk of steel when he/she could be making something useful and actually learning more aspects of the trade, whatever it might be.

There's a corollary in traditional wood-carving apprenticeships. Specifically, the novice was given one carving tool, and a basswood block(actually, linden or "lime" since this is a description of British carving apprenticeships). The task was to turn the block entirely into chips, and to pass the test and move on to the next tool, the apprentice was evaluated on whether all of the chips were of uniform thickness and length. That's not an easy thing to do as a carver.

The catch, of course, was that there were some 30 tools that had to be gone through before the novice was allowed to actually do some aspect of work-for-sale in the master's shop.

But the point of wasting all of that limewood was teaching muscle memory and tool control, so that the master could ask an apprentice to rough out a form in an expensive wood like mahagony without fear of him slipping and breaking off a major chip that couldn't be replaced.

I suspect the "file a perfect cube" out of a chunk of steel had similar motivations behind it.

[John Neel]

I like your explanation that the hand cut ones have soul. That gets close to why I like them. Maybe it's that I put more of myself into them. The appreciation for skills that runs through this thread and through this forum is also a large part of it. My own skills aren't nearly as good as what I see others do. I really haven't done much so I haven't built those skills. If I want to do something that looks even close to as good as what those of you who have worked at it can do [that's what looks better to me], I have to use a jig. But I am working on the hand cut ones and enjoying it as I go.

[Gaz Palmer]

Yet, today you can find beautiful examples of fine craftsmanship today while antique stores are full of garbage made by blind monkeys with a broken hand. I hear what everyone is saying, but I really think that the guys at the top of their game today blow away what we were doing 50 or 100 years ago. It makes my wonder how, since no one really does apprenticeships anymore. Must be a lot of folks like my that learn by bumbling around, screwing things up left and right for 10 or 15 years until we accidentally stumble upon the right way to do something.

The easiest means of avoiding screwing things up is to ask someone who knows how to do things correctly. :D

One drawback to "the bumbling around" approach toward skills acquisition is when certain unscrupulous characters retail their wares to unsuspecting customers, while masquerading as craftsmen and taking the bread from the mouths of time served craftsmen who've acquired and honed the necessary skills over a period of time. Such unscrupulous characters even have the audacity to look down upon real craftsmen!???

Much of the antique store garbage was factory made in production line conditions or crafted to fit within a given budget and possibly using substandard materials/methods.

If apprenticed, the norm was to be set a series of sometimes complex or seemingly mundane skill tests before being allowed to work as a craftsman. You'd often be re-tested following the first year's work earning a tradesman's wage and could have your right to work as a tradesman revoked if your workmanship didn't reach an acceptable standard.

The bottom line is you're more likely to have better work carried out by someone who'd apprenticed under a good craftsman than with services from someone who's just walked in from the street.

[john brenton]

I think any journeyman in any trade can attest to the fact that high skill does not a quality journeyman make. In the trades I worked with many guys that could do top notch work, but weren't worth a crap as employees because they were unreliable, inconsistent, unstable, didn't button up the job to completion, couldn't work well with others, didn't have "management" skills (ability to direct others, watch the bottom line, patience, etc.)

[Gaz Palmer]

I think any journeyman in any trade can attest to the fact that high skill does not a quality journeyman make. In the trades I worked with many guys that could do top notch work, but weren't worth a crap as employees because they were unreliable, inconsistent, unstable, didn't button up the job to completion, couldn't work well with others, didn't have "management" skills (ability to direct others, watch the bottom line, patience, etc.)

Unfocused and immature attitudes toward work and colleagues tends to let quite a few journeymen down before they decide to move on to other careers.

[Gary Curtis]

The term "Masterpiece" doesn't apply to any wonderful example of workmanship. It originally referred to the graduation exercise accomplished by an apprentice, thereby allowing him entry into the category of journeymen.

Further back in time, the European guilds which were forerunners of unions inspected and certified the output of their members. Woodworkers find it interesting to hear that there were restrictions imposed by guilds so that carpenters could only build houses. You had to be in a different guild to build a bed — only Jointers were licensed to make furniture.

[Marv Werner]

I'm sure there is some validity in that approach to teaching someone a new skill, however, the same person can learn the same skills by actually producing the real thing. Wouldn't have to be done on an exotic piece of wood though. The student, through the coarse of learning all the various cuts needed to produce a certain shape would no doubt learn which tool does which cut and how to work with the grain, etc.

If the student is required to sit in a corner and just randomly carve away on a chunk of wood without close scrutiny by the instructor, the student might take forever to accomplish what needs to be accomplished, not to mention how damn boring it would be.

Kind of reminds of the Army. Forcing a recruit to bury a cigarette butt by digging a hole six feet deep and then filling the hole in.

The apprenticeship process strikes me more of a control issue rather than sensible and thoughtful instructing. I have trained quite a number of people to operate lathes and milling machines, etc. I put those people on the machines as soon as they figured out how to turn them on. We bought all our files and milling cutters and lathe tools. Just didn't make any sense to require an apprentice or beginner to make their own. I don't know, maybe it's just me. :rolleyes:

[john brenton]

Woodworkers find it interesting to hear that there were restrictions imposed by guilds so that carpenters could only build houses. You had to be in a different guild to build a bed — only Jointers were licensed to make furniture.

Reflecting on that it's understandable that people would pine for a place where they could work, trade, pray and live in liberty. Even though I don't deny the usefulness of guilds or deride their reasoning, when you've got the parliament, the church and the trade unions/guilds choking everything something's got to give.

The market decides if you build crap; anything else is control, albeit a good effort at keeping the trade respectable and keeping prices at a premium. If a man chooses to be part of a guild/union and go through that process he is making a wise choice, but the guild/union plus political power is stifling.

Disclaimer: All of the above is just my humble little opinion...if there are any SEIU members here please don't hunt me down and bite my finger off. Feel free to move it to the "pointless banter" section if it causes a fuss.

[Jim Koepke]

A task such as making a perfect cube by hand may seem like a waste, but there is much more to be demonstrated while performing such a task then just making a cube.

Same with making a file. The maker needs to know how to make repetitive hammer blows with each one delivering the same amount of force.

Kind of like the apprentice cook learning to separate eggs. Each time an egg is cracked the same as the one before and the one after. I have been amazed by watching cooks at times. I saw one cracking eggs with one hand and opening it and dropping it in his other hand. The white would go into the bowl under his hand. The unbroken yolk in his hand would then be deposited into another bowl and returned above the bowl of whites just in time to catch the contents of the next egg being broken.

These tasks teach more than just making an iron cube or a couple of bowls with separated eggs. It teaches or displays the disciplines needed in the trades.

These kind of test will also display the attention to the details of the apprentice.

With current labor laws and jobs moving to lower paying parts of the world, the apprentice system will likely never return to what it was. It will likely diminish and wither away.

jtk

[Marv Werner]

The guy learning to break open an egg in that manner no doubt learned it on the job while actually producing a product. He wasn't required to sit in a corner breaking eggs over and over until he did it to the satisfaction the "Master". And not every chef is required to learn to break an egg that way. And he didn't have to make his own knives before being allowed to carve a turkey.

The only point I'm trying to make is, there's a much better method in training people with a desire to learn than to force them to perform mundane useless activities and treat them as pee-on,s They can be made to feel important even as a trainee. Sure they need to earn their stripes, so to speak, but at the same time, they deserve respect. I can't help but think of the old school methods of apprenticeships, to a large degree, maintaining a type of class system where the so called Master or Journeyman is insisting on maintaining their status when associating with the underlings. Like, "I'm the Master and don't you forget it!" People learn faster and work best when they are working in an atmosphere that allows them a feeling of worth and value. I have experienced situations where my instructor couldn't do the very thing he was wanting me to do.

[Mac Houtz]

four words for you Marv....wax on, wax off.....

[Gaz Palmer]

The only point I'm trying to make is, there's a much better method in training people with a desire to learn than to force them to perform mundane useless activities and treat them as pee-on,s They can be made to feel important even as a trainee. Sure they need to earn their stripes, so to speak, but at the same time, they deserve respect. I can't help but think of the old school methods of apprenticeships, to a large degree, maintaining a type of class system where the so called Master or Journeyman is insisting on maintaining their status when associating with the underlings. Like, "I'm the Master and don't you forget it!" People learn faster and work best when they are working in an atmosphere that allows them a feeling of worth and value. I have experienced situations where my instructor couldn't do the very thing he was wanting me to do.

If your instructor was unable to carry out the work he expected of you, he shouldn't have been an instructor and could never be considered a master craftsman.

Are your views regarding apprenticeships based on experience or assumption? A journeyman wouldn't tend to have apprentice training under him, as he'd tend to be someone not long out of his apprenticeship and yet to become established as a craftsman. A master craftsman gains such recognition through mastery of his/her craft and it's a title seldom bestowed or used by the person it's applied to. Nobody ever truly masters their craft.

In terms of apprentice masters, they were in charge of apprentice (One or several) and responsible for their training via the best possible means. Very often using the same methods he'd been taught by and typically providing a solid grounding via the repeated mundane tasks, which then advance on to bigger and better things. It would often be a couple of years before an apprentice was given a complete piece to work upon, as they'd need to perfect each element before moving onto such projects.

I'm certain some apprentice are treated badly, but none were during my time as an apprentice and I've yet to meet someone who experienced such treatment. Respect is earned.

Correctly applied foundation skills training during an apprenticeship establishes a extensive appreciation of tool & materials manipulation, an understanding of how and why things work and thoroughly grounds the apprentice in aspects yet to be encountered or experienced. Mundane tasks they may be, but mastery of the most basic of tasks tends to lead onto bigger and better things. As an apprentice I used to whine on about wanting to make things and use power tools in spite of having to repeatedly produce basic parts, or carry out mundane tasks, but was always reminded of the fact it's necessary for one to master the basics in order to advance and become qualified to later pass such tasks onto others/take charge of projects.

Five - seven years of thorough training as an apprentice or a six month - one year course? Which is better and who aquires a more thorough appreciated of acquired skills and materials?

We began by making our first handplanes and squares before making the toolbox/chest in which to place our tools. Mundane and basic, but still learning skills and how best to carry out repetitive exercises without breaking a sweat.

It's all a matter of perspective.

[David Weaver]

Gaz, though you weren't intending to go this route, i'm sure, the specification that a post-apprentice craftsman would be attached to a journeyman creates an interesting situation in terms of career timing.

At what age would an apprentice start, say in the last 40 years? Would they be straight out of high school, or would they start before that? Even straight out of high school, it would create an interesting income-related problem for someone who didn't go above apprentice pay until they were past 24 or 25. It would put them in a serious compromising position if they managed to get married, and especially if they had kids.

[Frank Drew]

I really think that the guys at the top of their game today blow away what we were doing 50 or 100 years ago.

Nothing against today's better craftsmen, but "blow away" the work done in the past? I can't agree with that; skilled craftsmanship, and not just in woodworking, used to be much, much more common than it is now, IMO.

[Gary Curtis]

My woodworking club went on a tour of Sam Maloof's workshop a few years before he passed away. From his sketches it was clear to anyone that he was a formidable artist. I see that same skill when I visit my friend's cabinetmaking business to chat. This guy can really draw. And design.

That is where the 'art' of it all converges with the woodworking technique. Some of the formal training programs such as the one in Boston and at the College of the Redwoods treat furniture-making as a collection of skills. And I believe an intelligent instructor can see where a student is weak and where he can improve.

Being largely self-taught, I am aware (in moments of honesty) that I shy away from my weaknesses. I cut corners and avoid tasks that are hard. But, being alone, I don't always know what to do about it. Hey, if no-one is looking, one foot can be 11 & 31/32nds inches in the privacy of my shop. My wife could never tell.

Objective standards serve a purpose, in my opinion. That's what I admire in the long tradition of craftsmanship in North America. I just put up some screensaver wallpaper on my computer that shows H.O. Studley's remarkable tool cabinet. It once hung in the Smithsonian Museum. And the man made that for himself!

That's what I'm talking about.

(you can get Studley's tool cabinet wallsaver free from Fine Woodworking. Do a google search for the website)

[Gaz Palmer]

Gaz, though you weren't intending to go this route, i'm sure, the specification that a post-apprentice craftsman would be attached to a journeyman creates an interesting situation in terms of career timing.

At what age would an apprentice start, say in the last 40 years? Would they be straight out of high school, or would they start before that? Even straight out of high school, it would create an interesting income-related problem for someone who didn't go above apprentice pay until they were past 24 or 25. It would put them in a serious compromising position if they managed to get married, and especially if they had kids.

I don't think there was much of a compromise being apprenticed, as I bought my first house and married while serving my final year at the age of 21.

Apprentices presently begin at between 16 and 18 post school (School leaving age was 15 prior to 1977) with their time normally extending to a maximum of five years, but as little as four years from approx 1981. Typically completing their time before reaching 21 and often on 3/4 full trade/craftsman's basic rate of pay (Plus bonus) by 19years of age.

I married aged 21 and in the same year completed my 6 year apprenticeship and began earning full trade pay rates and bonus, whilst also attending night classes for a degree in civil engineering at college. My eldest daughter was born the year after I'd completed my apprenticeship.

The term journeyman was based upon the period between when an apprentice completed his time/was released from his indentured contract and became established/recognised as a tradesman in his own right. Time periods varied, but journeyman is a pre-fix that's seldom used nowadays.

[Gary Curtis]

Here's a link to the free computer wallpaper image of Studley's too cabinet.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/PlansAndProjects/PlansAndProjectsArticle.aspx?id=27038

[John Coloccia]

The easiest means of avoiding screwing things up is to ask someone who knows how to do things correctly. :D

One drawback to "the bumbling around" approach toward skills acquisition is when certain unscrupulous characters retail their wares to unsuspecting customers, while masquerading as craftsmen and taking the bread from the mouths of time served craftsmen who've acquired and honed the necessary skills over a period of time. Such unscrupulous characters even have the audacity to look down upon real craftsmen!???

Much of the antique store garbage was factory made in production line conditions or crafted to fit within a given budget and possibly using substandard materials/methods.

If apprenticed, the norm was to be set a series of sometimes complex or seemingly mundane skill tests before being allowed to work as a craftsman. You'd often be re-tested following the first year's work earning a tradesman's wage and could have your right to work as a tradesman revoked if your workmanship didn't reach an acceptable standard.

The bottom line is you're more likely to have better work carried out by someone who'd apprenticed under a good craftsman than with services from someone who's just walked in from the street.

I agree 100%. I hope I didn't come off at all as implying that apprenticeships were somehow a bad thing. I meant it more that in spite of apprenticeships being more and more rare, there are still people out there that are doing incredible work. I do really think that the best we have today are better than what we had 100 years ago. Better tools and standing on the shoulders of giants. It's as it should be, and hopefully craftsman 100 years from now will still be pushing the boundaries of design and execution.

One question, not directed at you, though. How many of our full time craftsman here take on apprentices? I don't personally know anyone who's taken on any apprentices and if someone asked me, I don't even know who I'd get them in contact with. I doubt that most people could even afford to have an apprentice working at minimum wage. Do you actually have to pay them minimum wage or does their education count as part of their compensation?

I got into woodworking through the back end. I came from a solid engineering background with an advanced degree and 13 years of work experience. That's about 20 solid years of being immersed in my trade, and I can tell you that:

1) I finally feel like I'm at the top of my game...or at least was before I quit
2) the amount of things I have to learn, could learn or want to learn still absolutely dwarfs what I actually know. Ah, but after 20 years I've learned how to quickly and reliably get the answers to the things I don't know :)

I can't imagine how a 6-month, or even a 2 year, apprentice-anything could possibly prepare someone to go out and do reliable, quality work. I think this is why all of us secretly hate George. Somehow he's crammed several lifetimes of apprenticeships and careers into a short period of time, leaving the rest of us scratching our heads.

[george wilson]

Marv,you ate totally missing the benefits of filing the cube. I put myself through the same thing because I only had a file to work with. First of all,you learn to file a FLAT surface,which is not the easiest thing for a beginner,or even a parson of some advanced experience to do. Next,you learn to accurately judge angles by eye. You also learn to accurately judge lengths by eye. There is nothing like spending thousands of hours filing to perfect your skills in that area. And,those skills translate into other areas.

You learn that most valuable of skills: tenacity. Tenacity has gotten me where I am. It got me through making that first complex,fully veneered English harpsichord when I first came to Williamsburg. I had actually never seen a real harpsichord in person before that. I had made an Italian style one from studying a book,and a lot of the dimensions had to be guessed at. That first harpsichord was a simpler form of instrument,and was not veneered. As I mentioned in my bio.,no one in Wmsbg. has done any veneering either,so I had to figure it out on my own.

You do get controlled by the master,and you learn to respect the master.

Making files was a very basic and necessary skill for a country craftsman to know back then. They most likely couldn't afford to buy them.

Just because you do not see that the old system was necessary,do not reject it out of hand. It was how society kept itself going and maintained quality standards for hundreds of years. It instilled discipline and respect.

Drew,you do not have enough confidence or perhaps exposure to today's craftsmen. There are plenty of great ones out there. Craftsmen today have many advantages over the old time ones. They get to see a whole World full of work,not just what is going on in a 20 mile radius. They have access to education that old timers never dreamed of.

I think the greatest thing modern craftsmen have to learn is good taste. I've said before,I have seen plenty of excellent technicians(I wouldn't call them artists) who can do great work,but their taste is sadly lacking. Especially knife makers,it sort of seems like. A lot of them are basically macho types with "dungeons and dragons" mentality and style. Many think it is smart to contour a handle to fit every finger groove. You don't hold a knife in the same position when using it.

Google the rooms of internet craftsmanship museum. Some of those people,NOT ALL,do great work.

[Marv Werner]

No, I'm not missing the benefits or the points several of you are making. I said in an earlier post that I see some validity in the old school methods. I'm just disagreeing with the strictness of the process as I understand it to be. Surely, there are many good experiences by some who went through it. As a business manager, I just feel there's another way to get from point a to point b.

Please understand that I'm only voicing my own personal view and opinion on the subject. I don't mean to infer that my way is the only way or even the best way, perhaps just a different way to get it done. :)

[Trevor Walsh]

With respect to the post about carving limewood into chips with individual tools for consistency, and the rebuttal, I have this to say.

I was reading Full Chisel blog, through old posts about hide glue. One argument that shows up and gets shot down by the author is when people say "why use hide glue? if they (craftsmen back then) had modern glues (or whatever) they would have used them so why don't you? His answer is "They didn't, so they didn't and I won't either." Because he works in the period style, he also goes on to say "You can't improve on the past." Now before we run away with that statement, I'd like to think it means something on the lines of "hindsight is 20/20" For us "then" is the past but for them "then" was the present. That was the state of the art, that was how it was done.

How I see this applying to our current thread is we are discussing a largely old system, that is unpracticed the way it was before. For a 7-12 year old carving apprentice, just setting them at a task and getting the concepts across can be difficult. I teach 18-21 year olds model making techniques, which basically consists of cutting, gluing, sanding, filling, painting, jig making and some other things occasionally metal and wood lathe, welding etc. Getting these things across takes time and one on one work for the intricacies of each individual's progress/technique/material/problems.

Granted there are 8 people in each of two classes to attend to, however when I teach the lathe to someone who knows nothing about wood, grain, preparing material, sharpening, or making the cuts I spend lot's of time explaining the details that pertain to their particular project.

If I was to make someone a master (I'm not saying I could, just that I understand the teaching-of) I would be having them practice the basics (like carving identical sized chips) until it could be done by muscle memory alone. These basics can be combined with the imagination to produce any work imaginable where in my experience, individual (albeit useful) objects tend to close the mind to possibilities, and reduce the totality of the grasp on the Art in question.

Anyways that was the long way of saying, they did a lot of apprenticing back then and developed methods of taking children and making masters out of them, something we don't do today, (What's the average age at College of the Redwoods, or Inside Passage etc. not 10 I'll bet) which might be why their methods seem backward to us, we haven't tried to do it this "better way" we're thinking of.

[Gaz Palmer]

I agree 100%. I hope I didn't come off at all as implying that apprenticeships were somehow a bad thing. I meant it more that in spite of apprenticeships being more and more rare, there are still people out there that are doing incredible work. I do really think that the best we have today are better than what we had 100 years ago. Better tools and standing on the shoulders of giants. It's as it should be, and hopefully craftsman 100 years from now will still be pushing the boundaries of design and execution.

One question, not directed at you, though. How many of our full time craftsman here take on apprentices? I don't personally know anyone who's taken on any apprentices and if someone asked me, I don't even know who I'd get them in contact with. I doubt that most people could even afford to have an apprentice working at minimum wage. Do you actually have to pay them minimum wage or does their education count as part of their compensation?

I got into woodworking through the back end. I came from a solid engineering background with an advanced degree and 13 years of work experience. That's about 20 solid years of being immersed in my trade, and I can tell you that:

1) I finally feel like I'm at the top of my game...or at least was before I quit
2) the amount of things I have to learn, could learn or want to learn still absolutely dwarfs what I actually know. Ah, but after 20 years I've learned how to quickly and reliably get the answers to the things I don't know :)

I can't imagine how a 6-month, or even a 2 year, apprentice-anything could possibly prepare someone to go out and do reliable, quality work. I think this is why all of us secretly hate George. Somehow he's crammed several lifetimes of apprenticeships and careers into a short period of time, leaving the rest of us scratching our heads.


Hi John,

I actually agree with what you're saying and have a great deal of respect for those who've applied such high degrees of self discipline whilst learning various skills (Often to very high levels) without the benefit of a full time mentor or passing through an apprenticeship. While I feel a minimum of a four year full time apprenticeship helps provide the best possible grounding in any craft, the fact of the matter is that it's the pupil/student/apprentice who then has to consciously endeavour to improve upon the skills he/she has learned and continue building on what is hopefully a solid foundation and activities become second nature. Many don't and tend to produce average quality work.

More often than not it takes up to five years (Post apprenticeship) experience before a person can truly call him/herself a craftsperson and it's much the reason why the journeyman title was applied to craftspeople who'd yet to prove their worth. Drop out rates are surprisingly high during this period (I recall from college the figure was somewhere nearing a 37%) whilst productivity peaks at around the age of 28yrs in most crafts.

Apprentices would normally be paid apprentice pay rates (Not much higher than a junior labourer's rate) from 16-18 and increasing yearly until they begin earning full craftsman's rate on completion of their apprenticeship. The above is often varied depending on the ability of the apprentice and it's not uncommon for apprentice to be paid 90% craftsman's rate during his/her final year or two.

The years of when an apprentice family paid the tradesman to indenture their son/daughter for service as an apprentice are long gone in the western world. The reasoning behind this "pay to be educated" system was due to the potential reduction in output via the craftsman/apprentice master and resultant lower earnings. Strict teaching was a norm and the "my way or the highway" approach was often adopted, but for the benefit of all parties involved. It's always best to faithfully adhere to an apprentice master's teaching - throughout an apprenticeship - in order to learn his school of the craft, before leaving and developing your own techniques over a period of years.

[James Taglienti]

Marv- i think that filing a perfect cube or sphere is a far more developmental activity than you realize.

also let's not forget that this guy was soon going to go off on his own and take jobs, or perhaps stay employed where he was already. doing important jobs, parts for sensitive or dangerous things.

if a guy can't make a sphere or a cube, due to lack of patience, muscle control, foresight, pure skill, etc, why should someone let him fabricate parts for a steam engine or elevator?

I don't understand why it's so unbelievable to have a challenge at the end of an apprenticeship. There are a lot of people right here who could spout off every step you'd have to take to build a massachusetts high boy, but wouldn't make it half way through without either destroying half their stock or just burning the thing outright, including me.

Just because I have read all about filing a perfect sphere doesn't mean I know how to file a perfect sphere.

[george wilson]

I hope everyone doesn't secretly hate me !. I started at a very early age. By 13 I was trying to build guitars,but actually,even many years prior to that I was making models and other things. By 29 I built the inlaid lute,but that was at least 16 years already of working at instruments,and several before that building other applicable basic skills.

My step father was always gone on the Coast Guard boat,and my mother was literally a crazy perfectionist. She made me work all the time and insisted that everything be done absolutely right,even when I was in the 2nd. grade. That was sort of an apprenticeship,though not a happy one to be put through. You would not believe what I was put through. If there is an after life,I want her to leave me alone.

I think I do have an innate sense of design,which helps a lot. My grandmother was a commercial artist,and drew the original Maxwell House coffee label,along with scores of other things I do not know about. DNA ? I really don't know. My mother didn't seem to inherit any of her mother's GOOD artistic ability,though she did paint in an untrained sort of way.

Besides,some people don't "secretly" hate me. One guy even specifically mentions my work in a very negative way in his blog. He says that the pinnacle of wood working is teaching your kids to make beds for their babies,not making a 17th. C. inlaid Italian guitar. And,if you think otherwise,you need a serious realignment of your priorities, What one has to do with the other,who knows ? I think it's back stabbing jealousy hidden away in his blog rather than being posted here,where he used to post. Another sent me a PM,accusing me of being an old gimp who can't do it any more,and I didn't really do the work,and my guitar was gaudy. That is why I posted RECENT work last month. For the sake of their own egos,these guys all have blogs.

No,the hatred is not all secret,by any means,John. I know you do not hate me,though.

[John Coloccia]

Besides,some people don't "secretly" hate me. One guy even specifically mentions my work in a very negative way in his blog.

As you say, it's difficult to teach good taste.

[Frank Drew]

Drew,you do not have enough confidence or perhaps exposure to today's craftsmen. There are plenty of great ones out there.

If this is addressed to me, you're making a baseless assumption. I agree that there are lot of skilled workers today, and never said that there weren't, but skilled craftsmanship used to be the only way a lot of things were made years ago, before modern factory manufacturing, so of course hand skills were more common in the past. The best house painters used to hand polish painted interior trim work, after multiple base and finish coats (carefully sanding in between, of course); you see a lot of that these days? How many master silversmiths do you know? There used to be thousands of them employed by the top manufacturers (Tiffany, Gorham, Mauser, etc.) during the height of silver work in this country (1845-1945). Highly skilled tool and die makers? Ornamental metal workers? Woodcarvers? Gilders? Coachbuilders?? Are we building a lot of cathedrals these days, or even Grand Central Stations?

There's been a bit of a craft revival since the Sixties, and there are museum workshops such as Williamsburg preserving a glimpse into a long gone past, but I'll stick with my assertion that skilled workmanship was more common in the past; not necessarily better than today's best, just much more common.

[Marv Werner]

Hi James,

Somehow I think I have left the impression that I don't understand the intent of apprenticeships and some of the methods used during that stage in a person's training. I think I have a pretty good understanding of the process and the reasons for it even though I have not personally gone through the process.

This is an interesting discussion. Many good points have been made.

My main point is, I do not agree that the methods used, in many cases produce an efficient end result.

The most important and precious thing we each have is time. We all have a limited amount of it. A limited number of hours if you will. None of us know exactly how many. Every hour is so important to us, we will spend as much money as possible and put forth tremendous effort to extend a life just one more hour. And we spend that money and put forth that effort at a time when the person is least productive.

Now, lets take that last hour of life and apply it to someone sitting and filing a chunk of metal until it is a perfect cube. It just seems to me that we are smarter than that. To me, that's a waste of one hour or two or 24 or maybe days of wasted hours. Of course there is something to be learned when applying that much effort to something of that nature. But lets change the use of that time to better train the person doing something that directly contributes to the person's end goal.

To understand the points I'm trying to make here, you need to know where I'm coming from. I relate to owning a business that must be profitable during this day and age. Very few businesses offer anything close to an apprenticeship program. Businesses that do offer it are, in most all cases large corporations. Eighty percent of businesses in this country are small, 500 employees or less. Sixty five percent of the 500 are fewer than 100. Most all of these businesses hire people they must train to do specific jobs. Jobs of all kinds depending on the type of business. My background is in production manufacturing. Retired. That background includes co-founding a couple business, and owning my own businesses. I've hired and trained many many people, both male and female. All of the businesses I've been involved with were in the 100 employee category. These small businesses are not trade schools. They need people with the desire and ability to learn quickly. Many of them will in fact go through a sutto-apprentice stage, but when working for me, they would not be sitting and filing on a piece of metal. I have hired journeyman machinists and also trainees who we called machine operators. I would not hesitate to put a trainee working on a milling machine during the first few days on the job, for example. They would be learning how the machine does what it is designed to do. They would start with milling a chunk of aluminum with a simple 1/2" milling cutter and they would learn about feeds and speeds. I would not start them using a 1/8" milling cutter. However, it would be important for them to learn how easy it is to break a small cutter. Just part of the learning curve. That employee would stay with milling aluminum until he has become proficient with using all the cranks and dials and levers and controls on that particular machine. He would not be filing on a chunk of metal to turn it into a perfect cube. He would be doing it on the milling machine. Does he need to know how to use a file? Absolutely. He would be learning that little skill at the same time he is rapidly progressing toward being productive.

My points all have to do with technique when getting things done through someone else,s hands with profits being the driving force.

This discussion can be endless. The points to be made are seemingly endless. The subject is complex and cannot be covered in a short message posted on a forum such as this.

My intent here is to not put anyone down for their beliefs and ideas and comments. They are all just as valid and contributing as what I might have to say.

[george wilson]

It was addressed to you,Drew, Are you aware that I was in Williamsburg 39 years? I can tell you, EVERYTHING made in the 'good old days" was not great. The reason you think so is because only the good things were worth preserving. The poorer things were,just like today,sold off or discarded. You don't see really great furniture for sale in yard sales do you? We have examples of old,junky pieces in collections in Williamsburg,but the great majority is if the fine work that was prized and handed down through generations to the present.

True,workmanship WAS more common back when that was the technology,but it wasn't necessarily great workmanship.

Have you ever heard of "chair bodgers" ? They were country guys who went out into the woods in the spring with bits of hardware needed to set up a spring pole lathe. They'd set up a simple spring pole lathe,sometimes just between 2 trees. They cut and split green wood for turning into chair legs,rungs,etc.. They turned these parts green,and stack them up to dry during their work in the Summer. By Fall,they'd have a wagon or 2 full of chair parts made out of beechwood,or other cheap,local woods to cart off to sell to be finished into chairs. These parts would have shrunk oval,twisted some,etc.,and were not high class furniture. They weren't even as good as you can get at Pier 1 today.

Furniture like that was not going to survive for generations and be in museums today.

Actually,I know several master silversmiths,being in the position I was in for many years. Granted,most people aren't. It does depend on the circles you travel in.

I have been in many original houses in Colonial Williamsburg over the many years I was there. The president of Colonial Williamsburg used to live in the Roscoe Cole House. It has the original chair rail moldings and stair cases. You would not believe the incredibly sloppy work on those chair rail moldings. They were yellow pine,planed in the wrong direction in many places,with HUGE,LONG splinters torn out out of them,splinters over a foot long. I mean,they would NEVER be acceptable today,NEVER. All the years of repainting have not been able to begin to hide those huge tear outs. The balusters on the staircase are SOMEWHAT
similar,but look like whoever turned them was drunk. They are totally unacceptable by today's standards.

Yet,this is a large,imposing,wealthy person's house right in the heart of the town in the 18th.C..

I won't argue that craftsmanship wasn't more common in the old days,but WHAT craftsmanship ? There were plenty of good craftsmen around,but do not think they were all great.

[george wilson]

Marv,argue all you want. I don't know why,really. What was done was done. It worked for them,it kept society going at the time. It kept people on the straight and narrow. What else can you say?

[Gaz Palmer]

Your chosen point regarding the production of a cube being unnecesary is ill-founded by virtue of the fact the exercise is a means of proving a group of skill sets are complete and the person is more than capable of moving ahead as a craftsman. Tests of this type aren't uncommon and the reason they exist is that they virtually eliminate the risk of placing a person who's incapable of carrying out complex tasks into the workplace with responsabilities beyond his ability. If a person proves unable to complete such a test he's given more time to perfect his skills before being re-tested.

From an employer's perspective would you prefer to employ tested or untested craftsmen and would you expect to have to correct the work they've done or expect the work to be first class?

The type of training you seem to prefer tends to be used when employing unskilled or semi-skilled labour. The responsabilities of a craftsman tend to differ by quite a degree in terms of responsability and expected end results. These skills can't be learned over a short period, but you will tend to find business tend to prefer to employ experienced craftsmen who've been trained elsewhere. The primary reasons being costs and the responsabilities that come with training apprentices.

What you speak of is production line based training of production line workers who eventually come to know the various jobs within a workplace, but don't necessarily understand the reasoning behind given craft operations and often don't possess much in depth background knowledge of the tasks they're given.

[John Coloccia]

I teach people to juggle starting with 1 ball. Why? Because anyone with mediocre technique can juggle 3 balls, albeit possibly very clumsily. If you can't throw and catch 1 ball accurately and precisely, though, you will NEVER do 5 balls. It doesn't matter how well you can keep 3 balls going. Practicing 3 balls until it's perfected will not get you to 5 balls until *1* ball is perfected.

Filing a cube by hand may seem useless until you're on your back under some equipment, with bad lighting, trying to get two surface to accurately mate.

[James Taglienti]

Well, I could say the same thing about the hours I spent in grade school learning how to write in cursive. Or the time I spend in front of a computer screen. :eek:

[Frank Drew]

EVERYTHING made in the 'good old days" was not great. The reason you think so is because only the good things were worth preserving

George,

Please don't tell me what I think; as in your previous personal remark about me, you're wrong, and you're disagreeing with things I never said or implied.

[I have a first name and a last name; purposely addressing me by my last name seems uncivil in forum such as this.]

[george wilson]

I think Marv is forgetting that those apprentices started at 13,were fed and clothed,but not paid,and essentially were educated into the work. Today we hire adults who have to be paid to work in businesses. That's different.

[george wilson]

Sorry,Frank. I have known several people named Drew.

But,what do I know about the history of craftsmanship compared to you ? Obviously nothing. I bow to your eminence.

I will say that over the years in Williamsburg,we were sent to many,many training classes on subjects just like this one,to properly educate us on addressing the public when questions like this inevitably came up. We probably had the equivalent of a degree in the number of classes we attended. These classes were taught by our research,curatorial,and archaeological departments,as well as by the masters of the different trades shops so that everyone might have a working knowledge of the other trades in the museum. I spent about as much time in these classes as I did getting my college degree. And the teachers,being specialists,were most often of better quality than my college professors.

[Frank Drew]

George,

I agree that a lot can be learned by filing a steel block for its own sake.

Years ago, Tom Peters, who co-wrote the book In Search of Excellence, had a tv show on that theme, highlighting several companies that exemplified his ideas about excellent practices. One of them was a German manufacturer of super high-tech machine tools, all state-of-the-art, CNC controlled, etc., etc.

Their apprentices, however, began their education by having to hand file slightly irregular steel blocks, and only passed when the blocks were correctly sized in all dimensions and precisely right-angled at all intersections. The director of the company explained that their philosophy was that even though they made computer controlled machinery, the machines were still made of steel and an intimate understanding of the material and its working properties was essential.

[Gaz Palmer]

skilled craftsmanship, and not just in woodworking, used to be much, much more common than it is now, IMO.

Very true too. Even just going back 20yrs there were far more real craftsmen than there are now. IMHO much of the cause has been the lingering attempt to carry out craft training over much shorter periods. Often six months in some cases.

[george wilson]

I bow to your eminence,Frank,even though I have no idea what your background is. As I think I said,there are plenty of fine craftsmen out there,though,obviously,there are not as many as when current technology depended upon them.

I learned the old school way myself,and nothing came easy for me.

[Jim Koepke]

I hope everyone doesn't secretly hate me !.

I do not think people secretly hate you, George. I think we may envy many aspects of your life's path. I know many of us admire your work and enjoy seeing the pictures.

One thing that seems to be lost in this discussion is that the modern day world and the world of even just 50 years ago are two very different places. A century ago, the labor laws were very different. Minimum wage did not exist. Children could work in mines and factories.

The filing of the cube reminds me of a man who once employed me in his business. He had a fondness for me because when assigned some of the menial jobs that had to be done, I wouldn't complain, I would just do them and get them done.

Filing a cube is like the menial task. If the apprentice takes the cube, smiles broadly and sets to the task, it says as much about them as if they moan and groan while muttering away while attacking the hunk of metal. The moaner and groaner likely would never make it to the point of having an "opportunity" to make a cube. The apprentice was likely working for room and board or may have been the son of someone working in the same facility.

There are still some situations where people perform work without monetary reward. Their numbers are shrinking. I did some work as an apprentice stage hand in the 1960s. I am not sure if such positions still exist. My father came by and visited. He could not understand why we were all just sitting around. He did not understand that you can not be swinging hammers or just moving stuff around on stage during a performance, but we had to be there for scene changes.

He would likely also see the filing of the cube as a waste of time.

When the technology changes, so must the training methods.

jtk

[David Weaver]

I am not sure if such positions still exist.

They do. There is a local here. I don't know what their work is like now, but they do still exist.

[george wilson]

I would like to remind everyone that I did not invent filing the cube,nor do I see the need to be defending it. I "filed the cube" of my own volition as a youth because I was very poor and had no other way of getting some things done. that was my own choice.

I see no need to continue to discuss/argue some points with certain people who already have their minds made up about everything they post. Some are in the habit of always seeming to be negative about just about everything they get into. I have had it with them.

I did have a unique career,and a unique educational opportunity to learn about woodworking,metal working,and their historic contexts.

[steven c newman]

To go from Apprentise to a Journeyman, WHAT would a test be like? Say for your "run-of-the-miller" Joiner? What would he have to do to pass? I spent five years learning to be a "Concrete-Carpenter" BEFORE I was allowed to call myself such. According to the local Union rules, I am a Carpenter/I, and at the entry level for such a Trade. But, what would a Joiner from Williamsburg have to pass to be called anything more than an Apprentise? :confused:

[Marv Werner]

"quote"
I see no need to continue to discuss/argue some points with certain people who already have their minds made up about everything they post. Some are in the habit of always seeming to be negative about just about everything they get into. I have had it with them. "unquote"

George,

Couldn't agree with you more. Seems to be impossible to just have a give and take conversation in here without someone getting their bloomers in a wad.

[george wilson]

Bloomers ! I like that !

[Rob Woodman]

I started my apprenticeship at 16, it was a three and a half year course.
Part college work both theory and practical lessons and part on site or in the workshop for the company I was apprenticed to.
My apprenticeship was for me to be a carpenter and joiner. Which is an oft confused title.
It covered such subjects as handtool use techniques and sharpening, machining practices and cutter geometry, construction design and practices, formwork, roofing, cabinetry and remedial works.
All aspects of joinery and house building really.
I worked with several old timers for different projects and with a bunch of very capable guys in the workshop and machine shop.

In short, my apprenticeship has made it possible for me to undertake anything a job throws at me, it gave me the groundwork info, the skills(hand and machinery) and the capacity to think a job through.

That is, I believe, the true worth of an apprenticeship. To dumb the training down or foreshorten the learning period is to the detriment of the skills base and the trainee and to society as a whole.

Sadly this is what has been happening in the UK for a number of years.

Rob.

[Marv Werner]

You totally misunderstand that I'm not arguing, I'm merely presenting a different point of view. I'm not directing my criticism directly at you when I criticize some of the methods used regarding apprenticeships. We all know you didn't design the process.

Our discussions in here and in other similar forums could be more productive and instructive if we all would put forth a little more effort to understand that nearly everyone relates to a different set of circumstances and experiences. No one person is entitled to having the last word on everything. Try to glean the positive and useful information and comments from a post that has been thoughtfully written instead of only zeroing in on a couple negative things that we think is perhaps on a personal level.;)

[george wilson]

I wasn't aware that you had said negative things,Marv,and the comment wasn't directed at you. Don't get YOUR bloomers in a wad.:):):)

I had just said what is simply factual: It doesn't matter what anyone thinks of the old apprentice system. It is over and gone. It happened hundreds of years ago,and we can't go back and change it.

We can't continue it today,because kids are sent to school until they are grown these days anyway. Back then,their work and their religion WAS their lives, and their education,period.

I did live a pretty hard life when I was young,had to work like hell all the time,and learned most things the hard way. It did make me determined. It was a form of old school apprenticeship.

[Jon van der Linden]

Nothing against today's better craftsmen, but "blow away" the work done in the past? I can't agree with that; skilled craftsmanship, and not just in woodworking, used to be much, much more common than it is now, IMO.

The average person's abilities, no matter their profession, are just that, average.

In the past there was an exceedingly small portion of the population that could afford any kind of luxury item. Any time over 100 years ago, 95% of the population were farmers. The items people made had to be made as quickly as possible for the lowest cost. That doesn't mean people didn't know what they were doing, but there was really very very little high level work going on.

The other fact is that most people are blissfully unaware of the large amount of high end work being done today, which leads to comments from designers like "This table could not have been carved in the West where comparable craftsmanship does not exist anymore." Anyone truly familiar with the craft knows that there are highly skilled craftsmen in Europe (where that table is "made/sold" who could have done the work.

If you're looking at the knowledge of the common laborer/contactor to actually perform their job, today they are quite ignorant. It really depends on the exact field you're talking about and at what level.

[george wilson]

I agree exactly with you,Jon. I had stated that most of the work in the old days was cheap,just like today,and did not survive. We don't keep formica dinette sets in the family for generations.

I agree that many are "blissfully unaware" of the high level of craftsmanship that is being done today. There are extremely good pieces of work to be seen here in the Projects section. SOME (not all) of the submissions to the Rooms of the Internet Craftsmanship Museum are great pieces of work by anyone's standards. I have encouraged people to go there.

[Eric Brown]

If anything, I have found patience to be one of the better lessons learned by concentrating on hand tools. Because of the physical work involved, sometimes it pays to slow down and think about the task and enjoy the process. With power tools you just expect immediate perfect results ever time.

When I build, it's never perfect, but everything brings a smile to my face when I fully embrace the fact that I made it myself.

One "advantage" I have over the professionals is that I'm not in any kind of hurry. I have goals, not deadlines.

Just look at my potato storage box to see some of my joy: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=151796

All the joinery was done by hand.

Enjoy the ride. Do your best, then do better.
Eric

[Frank Drew]

Any time over 100 years ago, 95% of the population were farmers.
Jon,
In 1790, the U.S. labor force was around 90% farm, but it's been dropping dramatically ever since. By 1900, farmers were 38% of the labor force (the U.S. population as a whole in 1900 was ca. 60% rural, but obviously not all were engaged in farm work.) In 1910, your 100 years ago, 31% of the labor force were in farm work.

http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farmers_land.htm
http://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/urpop0090.txt


The other fact is that most people are blissfully unaware of the large amount of high end work being done today
I'm quite aware that high end, high quality work is being done today -- I allow myself to think that I've done my own small share of it -- but hand-made or custom-made anything... furniture, shoes, clothing, housing, boats, cars, leather goods, silver flatware or hollow ware, goldsmithing, whatever, are you really going to argue that today we're in period of hand-crafted workmanship comparable to, say, the Gilded Age? And, repeating myself, I'm arguing quantity, not quality.

My initial posting in this thread was simply to disagree with the notion that today's top work is vastly better ("blows away") the work of previous generations, and I still disagree with that premise: Do today's woodcarvers blow away Grinling Gibbons or the legion of carvers in Renaissance Germany? Are the furniture designs by John and Thomas Seymour's second rate in comparison to the highest end work today? Is even an ultra-expensive home today constructed as well as Biltmore, or some of the "cottages" in Newport?

Please.

But it is what it is, people's priorities have changed; a hundred years ago people with a bit of money would have commissioned a custom dining table, or a set of silverware for twelve; today, they buy an Audi, or a beach house, or pay for boarding school (or braces) for the kids.

[John Coloccia]

My initial posting in this thread was simply to disagree with the notion that today's top work is vastly better ("blows away") the work of previous generations, and I still disagree with that premise:

That was me that said that.

I guess the question would be, what do you think our peak was? If we're not getting better, at some point we must have peaked and started declining. In most disciplines, practitioners at the top of their game are better than those that came before them. They learn from the masters, they have better tools and as I said they can stand on the shoulders of giants to see further than the last generation. If we're not better, where did we start our decline, or at least where did we start our flat line?

I hope you don't take this as being argumentative. I have a pretty open mind, especially about subjective things such as this, and I'm really interested in hearing where people think we've peaked.

[Frank Drew]

John,

Without arguing that today's best work isn't as good as what came before, what's true is that there just aren't as many practitioners of the hand crafts as there used to be, so the premise that any given knowledge and practice naturally continues to improve doesn't apply here, it's been shortcircuited, as it were. For example, is wheelwrighting as done today better than it was 100 years ago, when it was widely practiced? Horsedrawn coachbuilding?

But medicine, sports, electronics, aviation... those are all clearly better than they used to be because we've emphasized them, and rewarded those who do them well.

[george wilson]

Something that MIGHT be being overlooked is that there was great division of labor in the old days. Those incredible Boule inlaid tables and desks,and those chiseled guns were not made by one person. They were made by many specialists working in concert.

It was mentioned in a contemporary source that 29 people made a gun in London as a general course of things.There were very specialized workers,such as breeck plug forgers,for example,who did nothing else. There was even a "screwer together" who assembled parts,and possibly made the screws.

It was mentioned that a certain gunsmith, Durs Egg,was one of the very few in London(and to even BE in London, you had to be among the very best),who could make an entire gun BY HIMSELF "without hawking parts to every journeyman in town." This is very important to remember.

When a modern craftsman makes an object FROM SCRATCH,he has to make the entire thing by himself,like I did with my pistol. Thus,the modern craftsman actually is at the disadvantage,though he has the advantage educationally,of examining a lot of diverse work.

Boutet,Napoleon's favorite gunmaker,had a large staff of engravers,forgers,chiselers,etc. at his shop in the Louvre. He billed himself as the equivalent of "chief designer".

Grinnling Gibbons employed something like 80 carvers at one point. Maybe more at other times. I have read the Grinnling Gibbons book long ago,but cannot recall small details. He had a great deal of demand,and several major projects going on at once all of the time. Special carving tools were roughly forged out and handled in his shop as needed. Only the cutting ends were made accurately.

Yet,all of the work one can see in St. Pauls and other places is attributed to Grinnling Gibbons,when his hand may not actually have touched it,except to issue drawings.

Stradivarius had a staff of competent builders,too. He may have chosen the wood,and possibly done some final thicknessing. He did not make over 1200 violins by himself.He was known to have been a very rich man during his life.

Jose Ramirez the guitar maker does the same today.

I wish the reader would bear these things in mind when he reflects upon great and complex pieces of work from the past. No,there aren't as MANY great craftsmen,but I'll warrant there are a good number who are among the finest EVER at work today. I know some of them.

[Ben Rivenbark]

It's a false dillemma to say that we are either at our best now or have peaked some time in the past. Another option could be that we simply have plateaued. I have to wonder if the craftsman of today is any better than in the past or whether simply our tools, materials, and modern systems have made what may to some be an apparent difference in the end product. I feel that the craftsman himself is no better today, but perhaps advantaged by the vastly greater available resources.

Were we able to jump in the Delorean and take the best craftsman of today back to 1910 to go head to head with the finest craftsman of that time with both having the same tool set available, Im not sure who I would put my money on.

Ben

[george wilson]

It HAS BEEN SUGGESTED that the peak of craftsmanship was reached about 1680. That's what Wallace Gussler thinks. He was Master Gunsmith,then curator of furniture in Williamsburg. A largely self taught guy,but not stupid.

For what it's worth,I'm just tossing that in. In choosing the inlay style for my inlaid guitar,you might note that I chose 17th.C.. I do consider the 18th.C. as a more decadent period,and in the 19th.C,anything went,like today,a mishmash of styles thrown together. Except,I like 19th.C. tools the best. There are ALWAYS EXCEPTIONS.

I often wonder what kind of fools they hire to design factory furniture??

And yet,Wallace,as gunmaker believes the finest American longrifles were made in the 3rd quarter of the 18th.C.. well,that's a totally different subject,because we're talking AMERICAN,and they weren't made a lot earlier.

The quandary of today's craftsman is to be able to look back at all this great work,and pick and choose the best,and to have ENOUGH GOOD TASTE to be able to do it correctly.

I have to agree with Wallace about the 1680 date for many things,but you can just leave England out of that. We are talking continental Europe. England was always the last place culture ever reached. For example,Henry VIII had no armor makers,and really had his nose rubbed in it when the king of Austria sent him an incredibly elaborate suit of armor(still in the Tower of London),that even had spectacles on it! He imported a bunch of armor makers from Flanders and set them up in Greenwich to begin an armor making practice in England. This AT THE END of the age of armor,anyway.Queen Elizabeth's spinet was Italian. There were NO decent gunmakers in England until Hugenots,seeking safety,settled in England and continued making guns there.

They did build good ships,being an island nation,they had to. The French ships were better sailing ships. The English loaded theirs down with heavy guns and practiced learning to shoot more rapidly than anyone else. This served them well,until Jutland. The lighting was in their faces,though. At short range,though,they could out damage other ships,and the French ships were built lighter so as to sail better,and couldn't stand the damage.

By the 18th.C.,England had got pretty caught up,though continental styles still led the way.

[george wilson]

Frank,I have been unable to find any of your work in the woodworking projects section. I certainly would like to see some. Can you post some pictures?

[Jon van der Linden]

The quandary of today's craftsman is to be able to look back at all this great work,and pick and choose the best,and to have ENOUGH GOOD TASTE to be able to do it correctly.



George, you nailed it again. The resources available to anyone interested in making something or having something made are far greater than they have ever been. Having the knowledge to carefully select from those resources is limited by amount of knowledge one already has.

Overcoming technical problems is easy, it only needs to be solved once. The skill acquired through repetition can be learned. Design problems on the other hand require a depth of knowledge that is often lacking combined with judgement. This will take years of constant study to develop.

$ and judgement don't necessarily go together. The most common examples of really bad mistakes are seen in architecture where moldings and columns are applied incorrectly and inappropriately. Where I currently live in Palo Alto, all homes are over $1 million, and yet the new ones are often full of obvious errors. There are however some examples of stunning design and execution. The simple truth is that making millions in the software industry doesn't qualify anyone as a knowledgeable homebuyer, or arbiter of taste.

As for those that aren't impressed by modern work, have a look in the carving forum here sometime and check out Randall Rosenthal's work. Just pointing out that you really don't have to look far to see workmanship of the highest quality.

http://www.randallrosenthal.com/

[John Coloccia]

http://www.randallrosenthal.com/

Wow. I'm definitely on my way to hating Randy too! I've never seen anything like that. It makes me want to melt all my chisels down. Maybe I can make a nice cookie sheet out of A2.

[Frank Drew]

And for those who aren't impressed with older work (300+ years old in this case):

http://www.carolehalle.com/portfolio/img/gibbons2.jpg

http://imagecache6.allposters.com/LRG/13/1352/R7YS000Z.jpghttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CDzu3Nv8RwE/SbyfIe59AXI/AAAAAAAABBc/CzZiQ2hvLu8/s400/278365591_71ff1243e7.jpg

[Sean Hughto]

I guess the question would be, what do you think our peak was? If we're not getting better, at some point we must have peaked and started declining. In most disciplines, practitioners at the top of their game are better than those that came before them. They learn from the masters, they have better tools and as I said they can stand on the shoulders of giants to see further than the last generation. If we're not better, where did we start our decline, or at least where did we start our flat line?

I hope you don't take this as being argumentative. I have a pretty open mind, especially about subjective things such as this, and I'm really interested in hearing where people think we've peaked.

No offense, but this is a misguided question. When did sculpture peak - ancient Egypt? Ancient Greece? Michelangelo? How about painting? Was that Rembrandt? Picasso? Best music? Mozart? Beatles? With any art, each generation makes it's contributions - some is swill, some middlebrow, and some is masterful. The best of each generation endures because it is of such high quality that it stands with the best that came before and the best of what is to come. Every generation has great quality creations to offer. It's the nature of humanity to create. There is no ultimate peak - the tide keeps coming back to the quality high water mark.

[Gary Curtis]

:rolleyes:George Nakashima sure marked a high point in design. And it was so completely out of the Western Civ. style (ie. European)

He really had a fire going in him.

[harry strasil]

It's easy to tell which Craftsmen take pride in their work and try their best to do each thing better than they did the last time. When a craftsman gets to the point of thinking that he is the best at what he does, he is on the downhill side of being a great Craftsman. In most cases its not the Best Tools that make a piece of work look great, but the attitude, imagination and work habits of the Craftsman. And some will do their very best, but will never attain a great piece of work.

[george wilson]

Sorry,I can't see slabs of wood as a high point in design. Its an either you like it or you don't. I don't hate it,but I do not feel it is great design work either.

Gibbons carved that cravat as a joke to wear to some party(or might have made it for someone else to wear),but it was primarily a joke at the time. Some joke !!

I met a lady from Holland at a gathering of craftsmen,who did that style of Dutch lace. She had made a butterfly in that type lace. It took her 2 weeks to make.

I made a set of lace spools for a customer. I haven't posted them,because they aren't unusually nice work. They look like miniature "Indian Clubs",that you sometimes see jugglers juggling in real old movies. Bulbous bodies that taper down to little baseball bat type knobs on their ends. They were about 4" long. For an elaborate pattern,over 2 dozen might be employed,laid out in a semi circular fashion on a pillow. The lace being made would be at the center of the circle they formed. They would all have thread wound on them,and would be thrown back and forth to weave the lace. Real experienced lace makers would get very quick and adept in their use.

[Sandy Stanford]

:rolleyes:George Nakashima sure marked a high point in design. And it was so completely out of the Western Civ. style (ie. European)

He really had a fire going in him.

Oh Gawd what a joke.

[john brenton]

I don't think anyone hates you, but if they do I don't think it's because you're "the real thing". I have noticed that you're really ripping into people lately. You're kind of giving the virtual "hand in the face" to people's thoughts, suggestions, opinions, etc.

Instead of saying "well, perhaps that was a consideration, but I believe....." you're saying "Nope. Wrong."

It doesn't bother me because you're old enough to have earned the right to crotchety.:D


I hope everyone doesn't secretly hate me !.

[David Weaver]

:rolleyes:George Nakashima sure marked a high point in design. And it was so completely out of the Western Civ. style (ie. European)

He really had a fire going in him.

Some day i'm going to put legs on an entire tree and look for people who are willing to pay a lot for it. I'll epoxy the ants and everything in it. That will be the pinnacle.

[John Coloccia]

I don't think anyone hates you, but if they do I don't think it's because you're "the real thing".

I know George knows this, but I hope everyone else knows that my hatred for George is is nothing but thinly veiled admiration. :)

[John Coloccia]

Some day i'm going to put legs on an entire tree and look for people who are willing to pay a lot for it. I'll epoxy the ants and everything in it. That will be the pinnacle.

ROFL. I have a tree on my property that could use some legs about now. Massive wind last night. Of course, the one dead tree I have, the one that's on the side of a 50 feet almost shear drop that's nearly impossible to get to safely, is standing tall and proud. I've been hoping for that thing to just fall down. Nope, not that one.

[David Weaver]

ROFL. I have a tree on my property that could use some legs about now. Massive wind last night. Of course, the one dead tree I have, the one that's on the side of a 50 feet almost shear drop that's nearly impossible to get to safely, is standing tall and proud. I've been hoping for that thing to just fall down. Nope, not that one.

Sounds like opportunity to me!

Not a red spruce, is it?

[Josef Brandauer]

Gaz, though you weren't intending to go this route, i'm sure, the specification that a post-apprentice craftsman would be attached to a journeyman creates an interesting situation in terms of career timing.

At what age would an apprentice start, say in the last 40 years? Would they be straight out of high school, or would they start before that? Even straight out of high school, it would create an interesting income-related problem for someone who didn't go above apprentice pay until they were past 24 or 25. It would put them in a serious compromising position if they managed to get married, and especially if they had kids.

Where I'm from (Austria), you enter an apprenticeship after 9 years of schooling and start making money. The abusive "Meister" (master) is mostly a thing of the past as more and more kids decide to go to HS instead (a mistake, I think). Good apprentices are by and large wanted and appreciated.

[John Coloccia]

Sounds like opportunity to me!

Not a red spruce, is it?

LOL...no. I can't tell what the fallen one is. All the leaves are down and it's pretty far away from me. I would guess it's a small maple, though. Whatever it is, it looks like firewood from here unless I get down there and find some incredible burl somewhere.

[Marv Werner]

Josef,

The type of apprenticing you refer to is what I was relating to. Even though the methods of training produced some good talented and skilled workers, I still think the same thing can be accomplished using less abusive methods and techniques. Sadly though, we'll never see it happen in the US. Hell, we can't even seem to teach our kids how to read. As for educating our kids, we are 29th among all the countries in the world. This is nothing less than embarrassing.

If we did create an apprenticeship program in this country, what would we teach our young people? Most anything we could teach them is being done in other countries for a fraction of what it cost to do here. We and our unions have, through mainly greed, priced ourselves out of the world market.

So what are American companies doing now? They are setting up business in China and putting Chinese people to work. China is rapidly becoming the strongest country in the world and just as rapidly we are becoming a third world country while we focus on the World Series and the Super Bowl and squabble over politics year round every year and allow our southern borders to be wide open for anything and everything to just wander in. :mad:

[Caspar Hauser]

Josef,

The type of apprenticing you refer to is what I was relating to. Even though the methods of training produced some good talented and skilled workers, I still think the same thing can be accomplished using less abusive methods and techniques. Sadly though, we'll never see it happen in the US. Hell, we can't even seem to teach our kids how to read. As for educating our kids, we are 29th among all the countries in the world. This is nothing less than embarrassing.

If we did create an apprenticeship program in this country, what would we teach our young people? Most anything we could teach them is being done in other countries for a fraction of what it cost to do here. We and our unions have, through mainly greed, priced ourselves out of the world market.

So what are American companies doing now? They are setting up business in China and putting Chinese people to work. China is rapidly becoming the strongest country in the world and just as rapidly we are becoming a third world country while we focus on the World Series and the Super Bowl and squabble over politics year round every year and allow our southern borders to be wide open for anything and everything to just wander in. :mad:

So, not a glass half full kind of chap then?

[george wilson]

With all these guys buying all these very expensive tools being offered today,I guess we aren't 3rd. World yet. There is a renaissance of fine craftsmanship going on. Regardless of what the country is turning into (a service society?) we can enjoy the opportunities we have to get and use finer tools than ever before,to make some pretty great things.

All manufacturing is not dead. Today I was making tooling for a company to make Christmas tree ornaments that will be sold at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Not GREAT shakes,BUT manufacturing,at least.

[Gaz Palmer]

Josef,

The type of apprenticing you refer to is what I was relating to. Even though the methods of training produced some good talented and skilled workers, I still think the same thing can be accomplished using less abusive methods and techniques.

There's perhaps too much focus on the distant past and insufficient time spent reviewing the present/comparatively recent past. The abusive treatment of apprentices you speak of is a thing of the distant past and you honestly need to realise this. Cases involving abuse are very few and far between and very quickly nipped in the bud, while the vast majority of apprentices enjoy the time spent learning their trade.

Being apprenticed isn't all on-site/in-workshop training, as most attend college (In the UK this involves night classes and block release for college studies up to the level of C & G Advanced Craft and it's NVQ equivalent) and can - if they wish to - aim for degree level qualifications within their field of speciality. They begin on an apprentice rate of pay (Often on a percentage of full rate bonus) which rises in yearly increments until they reach full craftsman's/trade rates and bonus' on completion of their time (Time served) and attaining their trade tickets/qualifications.

The apprentice system genuinely is a sound means of producing quality craftsmen & women of proven ability. Bad news spreads like wildfire among apprentices and - at my local technical college among over 350 apprentices from various companies and small firms - not one case of abuse was ever mentioned during the years I spent there.

[Steve Branam]

The best of each generation endures because it is of such high quality that it stands with the best that came before and the best of what is to come. Every generation has great quality creations to offer. It's the nature of humanity to create. There is no ultimate peak - the tide keeps coming back to the quality high water mark.

Very eloquently put! I do think we tend to romanticize the past work, because most of the examples we see are the ones that were good enough to survive or be carefully preserved. But those examples then set the standard we can strive for.

[george wilson]

I think we will have hardly any ordinary furniture survive for 200 years. Our future antiques will be the special work that some craftsmen are making today. Not the commercial things,unless you count crazy stuff like beer can collectors,bottle collectors,etc. will some day pay ridiculous prices for,but which really have no intrinsic value.

[Eric Brown]

George, I love both your bluntness and your talents. Im do not envy your skills but strive to improve my own. You, and many others are showing us how. Thank you.

As for "Craftsmanship" I would bet you could duplicate anything made in the past. Others can too. Probably couldn't produce them in the same quantities as the past. Which leads me to think that the real issue here isn't about the craftsman but the customers.

A good example would be Sam Maloof and his shop. He had a small group of talented workers and a backlog of orders. Why didn't he expand? Probably lack of customers much larger than his backlog and if he flooded the market then prices would go down.

Obviously we have the tools to make most anything, and looking at the work done in the projects section or the WW magazines supports that assumption. So it's not the tools or the making talent. We have that.
What is lacking is the how and why. Why was one type of joint used more than others in certain places. Was it strenth or cost?

A good example of lost knowledge is the nibs on old saws. Nobody really knows today, just speculation and theories as to it's use.

George, It would be great if you started a post on your opinions as to what we have today that is better than the past and what in the past was better than now (tool and technique wise).

Anyway, thanks again George.

Eric

[george wilson]

Thank you for the kind words,Eric. Saying I could duplicate ANYTHING is quite a big statement !

Like I said,though,the real successful craftsmen had good size staffs doing their specialty on different elements of elaborate guns,furniture,harpsichords,etc. I know Kirkman operated a harpsichord factory. John Manton,one of the foremost English gunmakers had a good staff of highly skilled men,Gibbons employed about 80.

A craftsman working today generally has to do everything by himself. It is perhaps more of a challenge than many would realize. Many people have visions of some old time lone craftsman in a small shop,hunched over a workbench,making masterpieces by himself. Not really true for a lot of the well known masters.

[Terry Fogarty]

I think the current “overalll” skill level of woodworkers has never been better. It’s never been easier to learn than it is now. With a proliferation of Woodworking Schools, a staggering array of woodworking books and magazines, and forums like this and others across the world and Google imaging, it has never been better or easier to learn and get fantastic ideas and inspiration.

In some ways it makes you appreciate the craftsmen of centuries ago when extremely long apprenticeships learning from other masters was the only way. It also makes you marvel at those who created entirely “new” styles, and that nowadays is almost non existent.

I can only speak from a Downunder perspective, but the quality of hand crafted furniture here is sensational. :)

[John Coloccia]

I think we will have hardly any ordinary furniture survive for 200 years. Our future antiques will be the special work that some craftsmen are making today. Not the commercial things,unless you count crazy stuff like beer can collectors,bottle collectors,etc. will some day pay ridiculous prices for,but which really have no intrinsic value.
This...


Thank you for the kind words,Eric. Saying I could duplicate ANYTHING is quite a big statement !

Like I said,though,the real successful craftsmen had good size staffs doing their specialty on different elements of elaborate guns,furniture,harpsichords,etc. I know Kirkman operated a harpsichord factory. John Manton,one of the foremost English gunmakers had a good staff of highly skilled men,Gibbons employed about 80.

A craftsman working today generally has to do everything by himself. It is perhaps more of a challenge than many would realize. Many people have visions of some old time lone craftsman in a small shop,hunched over a workbench,making masterpieces by himself. Not really true for a lot of the well known masters.

This....



I think the current “overalll” skill level of woodworkers has never been better. It’s never been easier to learn than it is now. With a proliferation of Woodworking Schools, a staggering array of woodworking books and magazines, and forums like this and others across the world and Google imaging, it has never been better or easier to learn and get fantastic ideas and inspiration.

In some ways it makes you appreciate the craftsmen of centuries ago when extremely long apprenticeships learning from other masters was the only way. It also makes you marvel at those who created entirely “new” styles, and that nowadays is almost non existent.

I can only speak from a Downunder perspective, but the quality of hand crafted furniture here is sensational. :)

and this...

Just my opinion.

[Jim Hoti]

An English machinist friend of mine went through a similar apprenticeship in the late 1940's...except he had to make a 3-inch cube from billet and THEN, once the master was satisfied, make it into a 3-inch sphere....took him quite a while. He said he asked the master (once he was done, of course) why he had to do that, and the master simply replied that it was "how they know if someone is going to dedicate the time and effort to become a machinist. If they lacked the patience to complete those tasks, then how could they be expected to have the patience to learn the skills properly?"

My friend is still much more adept than I with most tools, most especially a file!

[Jim Finn]

Gaz, though you weren't intending to go this route, i'm sure, the specification that a post-apprentice craftsman would be attached to a journeyman creates an interesting situation in terms of career timing.

At what age would an apprentice start, say in the last 40 years? Would they be straight out of high school, or would they start before that? Even straight out of high school, it would create an interesting income-related problem for someone who didn't go above apprentice pay until they were past 24 or 25. It would put them in a serious compromising position if they managed to get married, and especially if they had kids.

A apprentice tradesmen (elect, plumber carpenter Sheetmetal worker etc.)start at about $30,000 a year and after 5 years have tripled that. Many journymen make over $100,000 a year. Does an office job that starts at $30,000 get that far that fast or................ever? (Without a degree)

[David Weaver]

Jim, that's not really the kinds of trades we're talking about here. I can't remember the details of this thread because it's so old, but I'm thinking more along the lines of silversmith, fine furniture maker, custom gun maker, etc.

[george wilson]

I know a private silversmith who a few years ago was charging $125.00 an hour. He used to be the PGA trophy maker,and I worked on all those trophies with him,making the spinning chucks,wooden bases,and handles.

I never have charged that much. Try to find a plumber cheap! Back in the 80's I had one over. Charged $85.00 for showing up. Charged $59.00 for the first hour,though he only was there for 10 minutes!!

[David Weaver]

That guy better than the average silversmith?

Plumbers around here have gone through the roof, but that's mostly because I don't know of any private individual plumbers that someone else has used and kind of tested out. I'm sure they're out there, they don't have to do much advertising to stay busy if they're good and fair.

There are a couple of big outfits here who boast that they'll tell you a flat fee up front, and have commission paid plumbers. Plenty of horror stories about that, too much incentive for the plumber to see how much they can get out of someone just to increase their commission. Lots of older folks (way older) on my street, so plenty of stories about people getting charged $1100 to change the insides of a standard toilet.

Jim's talking about union commercial jobsite type work, from what I gather, though. That's tough work, and a lot of those tradesmen don't make it to full retirement before disability, and even if they do, they're broken down men. They've gotta travel all over the place and work on unheated job sites, etc. I don't envy them, though they can make good money if they get up on the seniority list and take all of the OT they can get.

[Pat Barry]

You have to walk before you can run. This is the point of the apprenticeship program. Learn how to walk, learn the skills and as you demonstrate proficiency, then work you way up. Certainly you could have someone new try to make something useful but until they learned the basic skills of the job they would be lost. They would be continually asking their master what to do next, how to fix this mistake, how to use this tool, etc, etc, etc. Take something as simple sounding as making a cube. You learn to make things flat, you learn to make things parallel, you learn to make things uniform, you learn angles and how being a bit off 90 results in a parallelogram instead of a square. Nowadays folks are just to impatient to learn the basic skills. That and the fact that basic power tools took away the need to learn the true skills of the trade.

Also keep in mind that much of what we appreciate about the past is the sense of style and functionality of the pieces. They didn't have the best tools or materials so they learned how to make things better, stronger, etc to overcome the limitations of their tools and materials. Now we can just slap some Gorilla glue on some sloppy joints and make things work (for a while).

I think you have to appreciate that your ancestors learned to overcome the problems of their times. Now we have better tools and materials - are we using them to their fullest potential? Certainly their are craftsmen out their now that producing beautiful and functional pieces using today's technology - we can only hope that future generations look back on the work we do now as enduring and well made. (not like it was in the 70's when houses and cars were pretty much slapped together junk).

[Jim Finn]

[QUOTE= .

Jim's talking about union commercial jobsite type work, from what I gather, though. That's tough work, and a lot of those tradesmen don't make it to full retirement before disability, and even if they do, they're broken down men. They've gotta travel all over the place and work on unheated job sites, etc. I don't envy them, though they can make good money if they get up on the seniority list and take all of the OT they can get.[/QUOTE]............................. Only there is no senority in Union Construction
. There is a LOT of time still spent on training on work with the hand tools to make sheetmetal ducts and fittings.

[David Weaver]

............................. Only there is no senority in Union Construction
. There is a LOT of time still spent on training on work with the hand tools to make sheetmetal ducts and fittings.

Why is that, everyone is a journeyman?

I don't know much about union stuff (are you talking about construction as in folks in a construction local, or as in all of the trades on a commercial site) but I could swear I remember an elevator guy telling me that he had 30 years and has first crack at OT, and is especially keen on taking it if it's over a holiday.

[Don C Peterson]

The term "Masterpiece" doesn't apply to any wonderful example of workmanship. It originally referred to the graduation exercise accomplished by an apprentice, thereby allowing him entry into the category of journeymen.

Further back in time, the European guilds which were forerunners of unions inspected and certified the output of their members. Woodworkers find it interesting to hear that there were restrictions imposed by guilds so that carpenters could only build houses. You had to be in a different guild to build a bed — only Jointers were licensed to make furniture.

Which gets to the dark side of apprenticeships etc... The guilds were destroyed because they were an artificial barrier to entry, which amounted to monopoly; artificially suppressing competition and innovation while inflating prices.

I think we sometimes tend to over-romanticize the past. Craftsmanship exists today just as much as it ever did. In any age it was rare; and expensive. I suspect that the reason we tend, IMO, to think the past standards of craftsmanship exceed today's is that, for the most part, it's the heirloom quality pieces of yesteryear that have been preserved while the standard run-of-the-mill stuff got used up and discarded long ago by those who could not hope to afford the products of real "craftsmen."

[Jim Finn]

I am referring to construction sites and usualy all trades are union workers
.Most are journeymen..... This does not give them seniority as to lay offs to anyone. There it a ratio of journeymen to apprentices but individuals do not have senority , one over the other, In fact an apprentice is to be one of the last to be layed off and if he is, he is dispached out again by the union so as to not intrrupt his training. Yes, sometimes ahead of a journeyman. Over time is assigned by the owners not the Unions but the union "guidline" is to give everyone a chance at overtime.

[george wilson]

About the silversmith:Yes,he is an excellent silversmith,properly trained in England.(actually,having been to England,I'm not sure if this is a plus.:)) He used to run the behind the scenes silversmith manufacturing operation. They made much of the items that were sold in the Williamsburg stores(silver items). They also made many gifts for important leaders and diplomats. I did a lot of work with them,making steel segmented spinning chucks,wire drawing machine AND the dies,any wooden parts on their work,and often made the master patterns for them. They were not restricted to working by 18th.C. methods,being a behind the scenes operation like I was as toolmaker.

They also made the PGA trophies there. When their shop was closed( a big mistake on Williamsburg's part),the Master took over making the trophies,and also makes some of the products for the shops.

[David Weaver]

Yes, sometimes ahead of a journeyman. Over time is assigned by the owners not the Unions but the union "guidline" is to give everyone a chance at overtime.

That makes sense. If I recall, this guy mentioned that the "bad" guys got sent back by the company and sat on the sidelines until they were the last left or another company picked them up. I guess he got a chance at the OT a lot because the company liked him, though now that you mention it, I do recall him saying that the apprentices had more job protection than he did. I guess his method of job protection was to outwork everyone else as a journeyman.

[Jake Rothermel]

That's an interesting point, David. I know that in Elizabethan England (1600ish), apprentices were FORBIDDEN to get married before their apprenticeship was finished. It was such that in order for the Church to approve a marriage, a man had to prove he wasn't beholden to a craftsman or master in any way. Though I don't know the exact reasoning for all this, I could imagine that something like marriage (and having to provide for a new family, etc) might motivate an apprentice to the need for more money/income and compromise the work and the learning that were apart of any apprenticeship.

I've always held mastership as a state of mind. I'm far from any kind of master but the people who I would hold to that title have always been willing to teach me and impart their knowledge on. They were hard on me when I needed it and supportive when I needed that, too. I've met PLENTY of journeymen (in the trades, especially) who were EXCELLENT craftsmen but were anything but masters (and I refer to just about everything John said about "high skill does not a quality journeyman make." A master can not only do many tasks and his craft extremely well but also does with a great amount of care from beginning to end. That's not to say that their process has to be some kind of magical work where they give thanks to the trees and all that (though I, for one, support those Krenovian "find the work within the wood" ideals) or that they can't also be tough when necessary or efficient in their work; but there is a care and a seriousness within everything they do.

I'd also further clarify a Master as someone who believes they can never stop learning. Anyone who walks up to me and tries to convince me they know EVERYTHING about something is not only wrong but limited in their view and their work. You might know A LOT, but no one knows EVERYTHING.

That's just my soapbox view...

[Jim Koepke]

I'd also further clarify a Master as someone who believes they can never stop learning. Anyone who walks up to me and tries to convince me they know EVERYTHING about something is not only wrong but limited in their view and their work. You might know A LOT, but no one knows EVERYTHING.

That's just my soapbox view...

I think it is a good view. In a previous position people often told me they could do anything. Most of them never did much at all.

When I knew almost nothing I felt like I knew it all, now that I know so much, it seems like I know almost nothing.

jtk