Thread: Opinionated = Good (Round 2)

I had to think a little about how I could add to the discussion other than repeating my take on others opinions that I have all but appropriated. A lot of the opinions are SOLD very convincingly and many seem to move as the fashions change. I'm not immune to fashion trends in woodwork and I believe this is largely due to having no formal training as a foundation, no roots to anchor my opinion and many others will be like me. No craftsman to craftsman knowledge of what works other than what is mediated by the written and spoken word. There are some real tours de force in the woodworking world fanning the fire of hand tool work into what seems sort of golden age revival. I feel, and I could be wrong her but not for a hundred years have you been able to buy the same range and quality of tools as you can today, maybe they have never have been as good? maybe they will never be better? And most seem if not all seem to be of a past form.

I mention all this because sometimes it feels a little like I'm trying to learn to swim from a book, but sooner or latter it all falls into place and dive in with the real lessons only being learned by the muscle and the eye. I can't help feel like this is how it is for the beginner in any subject, and the well crafted ready to go tool might just be the equivalent of floatie or training wheels. But the metaphor breaks down a little, the well crafted tool does not hinder your freedom to move as a floatie does, the well crafted tool's lesson is more like what the feels like to float. That lesson can be taught from a Master to an apprentice but cannot be taught in the same way by book or word alone.

Most of the time our forefathers answer to our questions are full of subtleties, compromises and lost common sense. What I have learned is that a good tool has this information encoded into it somehow and whether we can read it or not often depends on who is writing the story and why.

-Josh

Edited for brevity...