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.

[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.

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 Coloccia]

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

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.

[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.