I'm afraid we're a dying breed :-(

Re: I'm afraid we're a dying breed :-(

Todd from San Jose


>Boy, what a let down. In my area (San Francisco / San Jose), the classes that I sign up for usually book pretty quickly.

The classes at my local Woodcraft are usually full, as are those at Woodworker Academy. I had the pleasure to attend a class at Lonnie Bird's, and his classes book up fairly rapidly after he announces his annual schedule. Is there another place in your area where you could teach and share your craft with others?

Todd

Yes, and...

Ted Owen, Pittsburgh


>at Marc Adams, some of the classes fill within 3 minutes of their accepting reservations.

Best, Ted

Re: I'm afraid we're a dying breed :-(

thomd coralseacat@yahoo.au


>HVAC sounds like people who want a career, and fancy woodwork is a tough career. There are centers like SF where wood sems to be in the blood, but in a lot of places it's not that interesting. So I would agree about finding places that catter to enthusiasts, like the LV seminars up here.

I remember walking down the main drag around here and seeing hippies selling candles on the street. There was that whole vibe that hand made was good, but the new generation doesn't see it that way, digital handheld etc... Big box, style over substance. There will always be a portion that like it our way it's a shrinking proportion in a growing population.

My wife and I were just discussing tonight

Bill Houghton, foggy mornings in Sebastopol, CA


>that no one honors handwork anymore. The conversation was triggered by a David Brooks column in today's paper in which he imagined a country in which every child in every school went to college, and commented how that would be the ideal state of things.

Wrong: not everyone wants to go to college; some people's intelligence is in their hands-and-heads, not just in their heads. But that's no longer considered a positive, as it was not so long ago.

Re: My wife and I were just discussing tonight

thomd coralseacat@yahoo.au


>Interesting. Brooks is a pretty corporatist guy, and those folks don't have much use for you if you are working with your hands. It's been moving that way longer than perhaps the corporation has been around. But every generation has it's stuff that it rebels against and yet is mired in.

Hippies seemed really modern with their synthesizers and electric guitars, but in the end those are hand played and bent frequency generators, not digital manipulations. The modern house of the 60s, is still way-out by modern standards, and yet stuff like stone and wood, single stories, wasted space, no cupboards, etc... were hopeless throwbacks to an ancient time.

So loosing the hand workers is one thing, but I feel like the modern generation is really cut off from it as a real thing. It's not a plant that grew in a wood and was harvested, and made at great sacrifice into a useful thing, it's all a "look", just like the surface of a video screen, and when the look moves on you heave it into a garbage dump. Stuff always changes, and I don't care one way or another, just wondering if it's really moving as it seems to be, though.

Cycles

Bob Hutchins in central TX


>What a bummer! I wonder if the failure to attact registrants might possibly be due to some other causes. Perhaps the curriculum wasn't widely enough known; maybe the schedule wasn't amenable to family cycles; maybe earlier classes weren't of sufficient quality. There could be many reasons besides utter lack of interest. I sure hate to see a 27 yo become disenchanted enough to think that woodworking is a dying craft.

I think we're nearing the nadir of a cycle. When I was growing up - right after WWII - the American population was transitioning from one dominated by rural families to urban families. "Home-made" was, at best, a veiled compliment and smacked of the Great Depression subsistance which most folks were trying hard to forget. Modernization, cites of tomorrow, and what is now called Fifties Chic, were all the rage. Then in the mid 60s came the back-to-the-earth movement (which included the Hippies but wasn't exclusively a Hippy thing) that lasted well into the late 70's with hand crafts waxing. Then the trend hit a peak and started waning. At some point, I'll wager, the desire to master manual skills will wax again.

I just wonder if today's kids have learned enough patience and gratification deferment skills.

BobH, CWP, who wishes he'd saved his Whole Earth Catalogs and Mother Earth News

Re: Cycles

Edward in Vancouver


>I'd have to agree about cycles. Too much emphasis is put upon office skills and computer work, yet in our area (Vancouver) there is a huge demand for trade skills, especially in the housing industry. Suddenly its become popular and profitable to become a skilled trades worker again.

My chosen trade is cooking. I went about it the time-honoured way and completed a 3 year apprenticeship in Europe, then went on to work (for low pay) at many 5 star houses. At the time most young people gave the cooking trade little thought and focused on computer and office skills. Suddenly in the last 4 or 5 years, perhaps co-inciding with popular TV programming, cooking has become fashionable again, and I find many young people considering cooking as a trade and bemoaning N. America's strange process of embarking on the career of a professional cook.

There is very little quality furniture being produced or sold today, most of the buying public is unaware of quality furniture or the process of designing and making it. Should there be an " Iron-Woodworker" competition TV prograam, or a program featuring a skilled woodworker with an abrasive personality, perhaps the public would have an inkling of what quality is, what it demands, and what it is worth.

I would have thought just the opposite

Dave Thompson


>Today there are more beginner woodworking shows on TV than I can keep track of. In addition to Norm and Roy which I believe was it more than a decade ago, the new ones I know of are...sorry can't remember all the names:

• Wood turning techniques - Yoder's show
  
  
• Wood Turning workshop
  
  
• Wood works - David Marks
  
  
• Scott Philips show ?American Workshop?
  
  
• Router Workshop
  
  
• Beginning woodworking with cheap power tools (can't remember the name)
  
  
• That new DIY woodworking show done with woman's touch and female host. (sorry I can't be more descriptive.)
  
  
• Hand carving show on DIY
  
  
• Hand made music
  
  
• Many internet forums like wood central available.
  
  
• The new internet woodworking TV channel with 24 hour woodworking.
  
  

From my perspective, I would predict hand made items are going to be getting more expensive in the US. India, China and other SE asia economies are on fire will only raise the cost of labor there. The all time high US deficit will likely ultimately serve to devalue the US dollar making imports more expensive, creating more incentive for labor here. If furniture becomes more expensive, that's likely more incentive for a diy crowd to make their own.

Further evidence, the growing relatively new manufacturers and suppliers like LV, LN, Clifton, Anant, Woodcraft indicate growth.

With all these clues, I would have thought the field was quickly growing.

Dave

Re: Cycles

thomd coralseacat@yahoo.au


>I don't so much think it is a mater of whether you work with your hands. Let's say in cooking some guy is a genius with the food processor finding all kinds of new combinations of fresh ingredients that are a constant delight, maybe he cooks salmon in the dishwasher, and machine presses all kinds of vegtable juices. Someone else is a genius at using their hands to make conventional jello. What I see is as if people didn't have the pallet to appreciate anything other than jello regardless of whether it is hand made or not.

I believe in hand tools but if the end result happened to be jello, I would be switching to machines. My concern is that either way there is a jello climate.

Also it is partly the fault of the craftsmen. I was in a little shop recently and saw some bowls slightly worse than I probably produced after I had my lathe for a weeek. They were nice enough "using" external contours, thick meaty walls, and a not very useable amount of internal space. In other words they were neither art not users. The wood was nice but not special, the finish medium, and the inside had tear out. For this a samll bowl about 8 inches was $100 can and a 10 - 12" bowl was $150. I mean that's just really bad value, someone will fall in love with them who has never had a nicely polished piece of wood in their house. But that is not good value in any sense. A lot of chraftsmen have a "here I am, now pay me" attitude about pretty low skills. And frankly compared to a renovations guy I know who charges 350 for a couple of PT log steps, and 500 to hang a few shelves, who can blame them. But I wouldn't pay for most of the stuff I see either. And yet at the level of the skilled trades (ha ha) the chraftsmen (guys like us) are not providing value you really can't get a lot done from a skilled hand these days. Nobody knows how to use this abundant skill and it gets off in some craft fair corner doing some rather trite stuff.

Like I got some troughs put up, a few minutes work, guys show up a few drywall screws and some caulking and they hang a few troughs and the bill was about 300. No more water in the basemnt and i am happy. Now how does a really skilled woodworked get 300 in half an hour? He doesn't because nobody appreciates the work. What we do is a distinction without a difference to the average person.

Re: I would have thought just the opposite

thomd coralseacat@yahoo.au


>Something called the "field" is doing fine. People do want to learn how to do this stuff for themselves either because they want to learn skills or find an outlet for tool consumerism. And that should bode well for people who want to teach. The real test will be how far past the boomers this goes. Boomers pushed a mad increase of interest in gardening and birdwatching. If it grows in a straight line after they shuffle off, then the skeptics have it wrong. But the boomers are from the handicraft generation, and the magazines shows etc.. grew up from them, FWW was first in line around '75, as was wooden boat. The boomers were brought up by the "greatest generation" that among other things unloaded ammo from wooden crates, every gun and bullet went over in a nailed together wooden crate, pretty much. Chocolate bars that my kids buy come in plastic film wrappers.

I'm not sure myself, but I do hear little whispers about the interest not being what it once was.

Not in Finland

Janne


>The similar classes here arranged by Oulu opisto were fully booked in 10 minutes after the booking was started.

They provide 4 classes in Oulu opisto alone, 5 classes in Oulu, 2-3 in Kempele and Oulunsalo and they are all full. It's actually quite hard to get to the class.

This region has only some 200 000 people living here.

Re: college

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI


>My dad's opinion was that anyone who went to college went straight to hell afterwards (do not pass go, do not collect $200). So guess who didn't even consider going to college? That would be me. My brother, on the other hand, went to college in spite of my dad's very strong opinions, and became an electronic engineer. Now he can afford to do woodworking as a hobby if he wants to. I have no regrets with the course my life has run, but with very little encouragement from my parents I would have saved my money and gone to a woodworking college. I sometimes wonder what my life would be like today if I had gone to College of the Redwoods. It would certainly be different, but not necessarily better. I am encouraging my children to pursue their dreams and ambitions, and I am pretty sure they would be better off with a college education.

Thank you Gary

Roy Anderson


>Thank you, Gary, for starting a very interesting thread. This discussion gets to the heart of a lot of important issues flowing around modern life.

1. The dissaperance of the tradesman-I run construction sites and I can tell you tales of 50-something men hanging on as plumbers and carpenters and drywallers and no young men coming in behind them. They all want to be lawyers or computer programmers and it's hard to blame them, just sad.

2. Consumerism and the nadir of do-it-yourself-ism. We've got to fight that. Only people that think for themselves and do for themselves can fight the onslaught of Madison Avenue driven consumerism. I think there's a wave coming and we are the leaders.

3. Hippies--I had no idea that there were so many old hippies hanging out here.

Re: My wife and I were just discussing tonight

Tom MacGregor


>People don't understand hand work. A local furniture shop uses hand planed surfaces as a selling point. They can make very fine quality stuff, but their tabletops are wavy on purpose. Even though an apprentice who delivered a surface like that would be beaten and sent out back to stack firewood they have found that it increases sales. Customers don't associtate a smooth, flat level surface with hand tools.

Re: Not in Finland

Jim Shaver Oakville, Ont.


>Hi Janne,

That is great. Finland has always been a country that interests me. Do you have any links to woodworking in Finland that you can post or email for me to read?

Thanks,

Take care,

Jim

Re: My wife and I were just discussing tonight

thomd coralseacat@yahoo.au


>That kind of thing is sad, the implication that hand work is special because it's clumsy.

On the other hand, while hand work was at one time finer than machine work, and the finest machines were hand tuned, that is sorta changing also, with the new computer machining technology that allows computer controlled machines to produce products that whether they might have been better produced one way or another were far too labour intensive to ever see the light of day prior to CNC machining.

Re: "Doesn't look hand made"

Dave Mount


>This comment hit home. A while back I made a set of ladderback chairs using all hand tools. While it was meant as a compliment as given, my father's reaction upon seeing the chairs was to sort of lament that the pieces were so carefully worked that they didn't appear to be hand made. I couldn't quite sort out my feelings about that. . .

Re: the original issue, it sounds to me like Gary's community ed program was just not marketed to the right crowd. And I'm not sure the 60's should necessarily be held up as the age of appreciation for handwork and natural materials. Think of the explosion of plastic furniture, and psychodelic vinyl miniskirts. . .

Dave

Re: I would have thought just the opposite

Dave Thompson


>Yes, I spoke of woodworking as a hobby. As a trade, I would have thought the decline occurred back at WWII. I would imagine it a struggle in North America/Europe/Australia as a trade without subsidy from teaching, writing books, or spouse's job, or an alternate primary job.

I can only speculate to the demographics that are supporting the economic growth in manufacturing of tools and distirbution that I spoke of earlier. I'm not a boomer, am self taught, and driven by it being a hobby that fills other needs. I would speculate that the boomers wouldn't be the primary money for current tool manufacturing growth, but rather the Gen X'ers. I would have thought Boomers would long ago put together most of their workshops. Since these tools, typically last more than a life time, I would think the growth of LN, LV, Clifton, Grizzly, Yorkcraft, Steel City, WMH tool group, etc. and all the other distributors of Taiwanese wood working tools is supported by new Gen X'ers and soon to be replaced by Gen Y.

Including the explosive increase in number of woodworking shows mentioned earlier, I would think all these are indicators of growth in woodworking as a hobby. A cancellation of one woodworking class, I would think more as an indication of possibly poor advertising, or a reflection of the disposition of only a local community...IMHO

Dave

Re: Thank you Gary

Hank Knight from SC


>"The dissaperance of the tradesman...They all want to be lawyers or computer programmers and it's hard to blame them, just sad. "

I know some lawyers who, looking back, would like to have been tradesmen - myself included.

The grass is greener ... etc. etc.

I see what your talking about...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA


>I'd love to take some ww and metal/machining classes at the loco college but no such luck. Cad, welding and other (vocational) trade classes are going strong here, for the time being. I say that because I see a lot of design/eng. and trade work in the consumer product field being out sourced. I was talking to the pres. of an injection molding company I've worked with for years, he commented he can't find any certified tool and die makers anymore. Their a dying breed here because everything's going off shore. It's a pity IMHO.

Re: ... psychodelic vinyl miniskirts. . .

Paul Kierstead


>I don't understand. By your comparsion, I take it you consider 60's work to be the best thing since sliced bread? :)

Re: My wife and I were just discussing tonight

Randy Johnson Connersville, IN


>Your comments really struck a chord with me.

I never cared much for school, and as a result was placed where all the kids of my generation with no scholastic ambition were placed � in an Industrial Arts curriculum. My senior year we all moved to a brand new complex that was not quite finished. I took a semester of wood shop without ever touching a tool of any kind. The shop was low priority and wasn�t done until a few weeks before the semester ended.

The science labs and main classrooms were done before school started. My homeroom teacher that year was an advanced math teacher who just thought the new school was wonderful since it had all the bells and whistles needed for those pursuing careers in math and science. It was his often voiced opinion that those of us who were NOT pursuing careers in math and science were wasting the taxpayer�s money by taking up space and time that could be better utilized by the �serious� students. He was incensed that any student not in a college prep curriculum should ever be allowed on the honor roll. Excellence in welding or engine repair couldn�t possibly have been as important as excellence in calculus.

I wasn�t as lippy in my youth as I am now. If I had been, I would have asked him how he thought the building he thought was so wonderful would have ever come to being if it wasn�t for the dummies who chose vocational trades over going to college. Protocol of this board forbids me from writing the exact way I would have phrased it.

My personal feelings after a few decades of dealing with others that did go to college are very close to Moses�s father. Some of them are very intelligent people, some of them seem to have mastered their specialty and little else, and some are complete card carrying idiots. College in itself does not promise a graduate will have knowledge. For more on the subject go to the local used bookstore and get a copy of The Peter Principle.

By the way, I consider the teacher I had in the shopless shop course to be the best teacher I ever had in any subject.

Exactly

Gary B in Central NY


>Back when I had my business, I teamed up with another freind and we both did a restoration kitchen job. The job was an island and two cabinets to match the existing old colonial style cabinets. we had special order hardware, old growth lumber, etc. and did a bang up job. She was extremely pleased.

However, BOTH the corian people, and the plumbers made the same or more than us on the job, and had WAY LESS materials and time in the job. Now, I'd like to say this is because my freind gave away the job (I was paid hourly, and didn't care) But, I got the impression she wouldn't have paid more. it's a funny thing.

Other Avenues

Gary B in Central NY


>Well guys,

Thanks to everyone for sharing my concern. There is an excellent group called Rochester Woodworkers Society just a bit down the road from me, I think I'll try to teach for them, I might get much more people. I believe it my heart there will always be a niche for the handcrafted, and not only because of the look, feel, touch, etc. there will always be a need for true custom work. My concern is the lack of people willing to fill that void. My true interest lies in teaching. I Thought these classes would be a good way to start.