Thread: Woodwork in literature

Originally Posted by jmk89

I was in the shed this evening taking a few shavings off with my humble #4 when I started trying to describe to myself the sound of shavings coming off a nice piece of timber in pure gossamer curls. I then remembered this passage from a book I read as a kid which I hadn't picked up for 20 years and which I thought I would find and share with you guys:

"It was some hours later when David woke. He lay with his eyes closed, listening. He could not at first identify the noise; a steady rhythmic hiss. It was a noise he knew well. Not the clatter of a trolley in the hospital corridor. Not the hiss of the automatic closing device on the ward door. Then he remembered. He was home, and the noise was his father's steel jack-plane hissing over the surface of a piece of wood.
He opened his eyes and watched the powerful rhythmic swing of his father's back, and the shavings curling away from the plane and rolling to join the others on the floor."
Philip Turner, Colonel Shepperton's Clock, Chap 11

Can't see anyone writing anything like that about a jointer, an electric hand planer or a thicknesser!!! There is something about the darkside...

Cheers

Jeremy

My eyes flickered as I saw the timber for the first time.
For years I had heard the cabinet makers machinery, yet this was the first time I had seen it.
I watched in awe as the timber went in all rough and raw.
When it came out it wasnt rough or raw, I was transfixed as to the silky smoothness of this timber.
He then sawed, jointed, and anointed, and before my eyes, grew this great piece of furniture.
This was more than timber.
It was, love, compassion, and a deep desire to make.

This is what I will become one day, a lover of all things timber, with a deep desire to create.




No youre right

Al

Originally Posted by jmk89

......There is something about the darkside...

Cheers

Jeremy

Amen!!!!!!

Cheers
Wendy

The timber was was rough. It was warped, cupped, bowed and twisted, all in one.
I looked at it. Examined it. Stroked it. Pondered it.
I looked over at my jointer, and then back to my timber.
I looked back over to my machine, and then back to the wood.

A grin crept over my face....

After donning the necessary safety equipment, I approached the machine and switched it on.

"Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm". Music to my ears as the three knives whizzed around at a great rate of knots.

I lined up my troubled workpiece, and fed it over the knives.

"MMMMNNNNNNYYYYYYYOOOOAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!"

One pass, then the second and third.
I breathlessly turned the piece 90 degrees and repeated the process.

"MMMMNNNNNNYYYYYYYOOOOAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!"

Moving to my thicknesser I completed dressing my timber.

"MMMMNNNNNNYYYYYYYOOOOAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!"

I switched the machines off and noticed that only a few minutes had passed since I started.

In the newly quiet workshop, I could hear a faint rhythmic hissing coming from the corner.

"Gee JMK89! Are you still going on that thing? I'm off to the pub."

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

R. Frost

The timber was was rough. It was warped, cupped, bowed and twisted, all in one.
I looked at it. Examined it. Stroked it. Pondered it.
I looked over at my four sider, and then back to my timber.
I looked back over to my machine, and then back to the wood.

A grin crept over my face....

After donning the necessary safety equipment, I approached the machine and switched it on.

"Groarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" .
Music to my ears as the cutter heads whizzed around at a great rate of knots.

I grabed my troubled workpiece, and fed it into the machine.

"MMMMNNNNNNYYYYYYYOOO
OAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!"
One pass, then the second and third.

I switched the machines off and noticed that only a few minutes had passed since I started.

Meanwhile, in the workshop next door, I could hear Brendan still slaving away on his machines.

"Gee Brendan! Are you still going on those machines? I'm off to the pub."

Mick

Jeremy,

Good writers can romanticise all kinds of things we used to do by hand, like picking cotton or plucking chooks.

We read the fine writing and feel relaxed and somehow comforted. Except that anyone who has had the unfortunate experience of picking cotton and plucking chooks will recognise that the activity is strangely disconnected from the poets version. They don't mention the bleeding fingers, crook backs, etc etc

Philip Turner didn't mention the sharpening, the argument with the curly grain, the tearout, the sore arms. I guess there's something therapeutic about laying in bed and watching someone else work.

I'm going to the pub with Mick and Felder. Let me know when you get that timber done.

Tex

That's the most sacrilegious statement I've ever read! Comparing using a hand plane to plucking a chook!! I'm outraged...

Tex,
good point, my brother and I farmed years a go and I had a friend come to visit. She had a very romantic vision of country life but after half an hour of chipping weeds in a 5 acre market garden in the tropical sun her romantic notions were shattered. (And there was still heaps to go). Never had her come to visit again.

Mick

But back when these things were written about, people knew how to work hard. Machines have made us fat and lazy...

Originally Posted by silentC

But back when these things were written about, people knew how to work hard. Machines have made us fat and lazy...

HA! When this passage was written, people were too lazy to even close the door by themselves!

Originally Posted by jmk89

Not the hiss of the automatic closing device on the ward door.

You can't expect sick people to get up and close the doors. And all the nurses were busy holding down surgery patients while doctors hacked at their vitals without the benefit of anaesthetics.

Originally Posted by silentC

That's the most sacrilegious statement I've ever read! Comparing using a hand plane to plucking a chook!! I'm outraged...

That reads like a line of dialogue from the RITFOTU! I can almost hear Frontbottom, say, or Hornblower:

This was the most sacrilegious statement Frontbottom had ever heard! Comparing using a hand plane to plucking a chook!! He was outraged!

"I'm outraged..."

And well he should be! Outrageous!!

Originally Posted by The sacrilegious one from another thread

Even though I use power tools for almost everything, occasionally it's just fun to run a plane over something.

Makes me feel like grunting and beating my chest.

and sometimes I do.

And hypocritical too!!

Hang your head, Texas...