When plans run up against reality
A little update: My initial update became today's essay, usurping the meditation on craft that I'd written. So in a Hungry Woodworker first, I'm going to send a newsletter weekly (at least for this week and next).
I know a weekly newsletter is kind of common practice, but I've hesitated to do so because I'm not exactly a content-generating machine. I'm a muddler: a few steps forward, try a little of this, try that, read about it, think about it, write to understand it, worry myself into knots, then move on.
I hope your week is going well and that your upcoming week features at least one first, be that personal or professional. It's good to have a little novelty in life.
Fixing what's broken
I mentioned that my scroll saw broke in my last newsletter and that I was awaiting the part that would have it operational again. The one company I could find that made the specific part I needed informed me that actually, the part was no longer being manufactured. So I borrowed a scroll saw, but it wasn't up to the task (one, the blades required an excessive amount of swearing to be changed and even I have my limits; and two, it vibrated too much to get clean cuts). Which left me with a project I'm committed to making without the ability to make it.
This is all part of my grant-funded project with Habitat for Humanity (thank you Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council!); I'm making house-warming dedication gifts for families moving into their new homes. I got to meet with one family and learn more about what brought them to Habitat for Humanity and what kinds of furniture or decor would be useful to them. They told me that lamps for their children would be very welcome, because their kids liked to sleep with a little light on at night.
It's been ages since I've made any furniture with light. It was one of my first commissions ever, actually—a lightbox cabinet built to my client's specifications. I loved playing around with different sources of light and how it warmed the Red Oak around it. I've wanted to make other lightboxes, but haven't gotten around to it. This project was the perfect opportunity; and my initial ideas were indeed little lightboxes.
But they felt too bulky and after sketching them out and mucking around with cardboard prototypes, I decided I wanted to go in another direction. One of the children is into Minecraft, a game my children also like. So I talked with them about what kind of objects in that game might make for a good lamp and they both said I should make a torch. The nice thing about Minecraft is that it is a very blocky world and I'm good at making blocks.
After playing around with different sizes and wood species, I decided to build a plain rectangle and paint it, then construct a smaller rectangle with open windows to project light at the top. I turned two of my original prototypes into standard small lamps (no need to let that beautiful Walnut go to waste).
But for the second style of lamp, I wanted to create something softer; the family told me that their other child liked princesses and fairies. So I wanted to make a lamp where the light would shine out through an image. Two problems: I have only basic drawing skills and I didn't know how to build such a lamp. And I have a deadline—this project is supposed to be presented to the public on April 20 and then the items I've made will go to Habitat for Humanity to be given to families when they move into their homes.
I went to the library, researching different techniques and styles for lamp building, and came across Simply Wood: 40 Stylish and Easy To Make Projects for the Modern Woodworker by Roshaan Ganief. I love her lamp design and thought it would be ideal for this family.
However, I'm always hesitant to use another woodworker's design, though I've heard and read so many times about how all ideas are stolen. We learn and grow by iterating on what's come before. This is certainly true for my learning journey. Being somewhat of an autodidact, I've got to take my curriculum from the world. However, my policy is to only use the products made from those designs for personal use. (Hence, my children's beds are based on this Thos. Moser design. I'd never sell such an item and I even feel mixed sharing about it, but it was a terrific learning opportunity and allowed me to build sturdy beds for our kids.)
Before using Ganief's design, I reached out to her in an email to tell her about my project and ask if it would be okay to build the flower lamp featured on the cover of her book. She was super gracious and gave me her blessing to do so. After preparing all the blanks (the pieces of wood needed to create a particular project, prior to their being cut into final form), my scroll saw quit working. Not just once, but twice.
The first time was a worn-out belt, which was quickly replaced. The second time was the bottom blade-clamp. After more research on the internet, I learned that Delta, the company that made my scroll saw, has changed hands a few times and not kept up with manufacturing parts to its various machines. My scroll saw, which is an older model (a 20" 40-680, for those who like random strings of numbers), is too old for the consideration of replacement parts.
This left me with hours of time spent and nothing to show for it. To say it was a low point is to be generous with the definition of "low." I kept thinking about an essay I'd recently read by potter Clary Illian (from A Potter's Workbook) in which she wrote, "There can be no doubt: handmade pots are made by privileged people for privileged people. The potter's privilege is not necessarily one of wealth or class but one of education and the freedom to succeed outside of the mainstream." Sub "woodworker" for "potter" and her observation provided me a measure of distance from my current predicament.
Low points are chances to reflect on how good things actually are, when the perspective is zoomed out. Sometimes way out.
Of course I felt stress about my broken piece of equipment and my inability to do something that seemed so straightforward. I felt depleted from having spent days and weeks in pursuit of something that would only remain in my mind, that I'd be incapable of bringing into reality. I felt like an artistic failure, because it's not like I was even trying to make something original; I couldn't even make a copy.
And yet, and yet, and yet. It is a privilege to get to step outside of the mainstream, at least in the work I do. I spent decades working in other people's systems, chafing at it more often than not (perhaps that's just my disagreeable nature), feeling run down and used by systems that focused on extraction but gilded it in the language of caring or social change or workplace wellness events.
I'm now getting the chance to make a living from the efforts of my two hands. Just because it's a dream come true, doesn't mean every day will bow down and go the way I want.
So how to fix what's broken? I had to modify the design to take advantage of the tools I do have. Okay, so not my tools, per se, but tools I have access to, specifically one of my dad's bandsaws (have I mentioned the guy likes backups? he has three bandsaws). Dad told me he had a 1/16" blade (for reference, the wider the blade, the bigger the diameter a cut, so a wide blade makes it hard to cut tight curves in a piece of wood while a narrower one can; a 1/16" blade is about as narrow as it gets, I'm no blade expert, but it'd be hard to get much smaller).
Ganief's design calls for several interior cuts, which can only be made by a machine that allows you to easily remove and thread a blade into a hole in the wood. Obviously, this isn't possible with a bandsaw, which cuts wood via a saw running round and round in a loop (or a band, one might say). My modified design took a version of her flowers and simplified them into a branch with chubby little buds on either side, which I was able to cut out with the band saw.
Next will be taking the joinery ideas I have in mind and building the connecting pieces to hold it all together. It won't be perfect, it's not even close to done, but I can see my path forward.
