Impossible joint and instagram

I'm still alive.

I got sucked into the sub-world of instagram to connect with fellow chilean woodworkers and that made me lazy to write and gave me lots of input to practice. I see a joint I haven't tried, and go to the bench to make one similar.

Today saw the "impossible" joint in the column and could not figure out the drawing, so went ahead and cut a test joint:

This is the drawing:

I cannot see the numbers. After lots of thought and the aforementioned fucked up test cut, I discovered the numbers. The dovetails  on the big side have sizes of 240-188 and 188-134. The slope of the dovetails are not the same (as I was expecting since the mitres are at 45 degrees), one is 52/200 and the other 54/200. I guess that's allowance so they can slip into each other.

The test I made had the upper dovetail going inwards instead of outwards, so it doesn't work. But I think I know how it works so I will try it again tomorrow or the day after.

Furthermore, I've came to realise that working only with handtools is a lot of physical work. I'm making a "small" 1.5 meters box for julia for 2 months already, and I doubt it will be finished any time soon. The thing is too heavy and the wood is to hard to handplane it to thickness.

So I've been doing more smallish stuff.

I brought some bows with me last time I came from Germany, and I've started to play with them. Broke the head of one while trying to re-camber it, and I'm working on a frog of Curupay since don't have ebony at the moment. I'm practicing the movements, procedures and tools you need to make the bow hoping that I can spend some time at a bow maker next year if I go to europe for summer.

I've also done some work in Cumala, something like mahogany but softer and oily, a pleasure to work with. Here is a poorly designed stool that falls of you touch it on the wrong place. Should have kept the 3/10 slope of the japanese.

The tools for violin making are slowly arriving, have new small planes and japanese scroll gouges. The cheap chinese planes are kind of nice, if you like to file your tools before use. These are the ebay ones, thing of them as rough casting and you won't be too disappointed.

The pin on the left one was bent, so I complained and they sent another pair of planes.  Still waiting for those though. For 15usd each you cannot complain.

Got also a new kiridashi real thin and fragile, perfect for f-holes

and that's pretty much it, the things in Chile with the woodworking community are moving albeit slowly, but have met a few really nice people interested in learning the dark arts.

Finally, I think the next course will be a week long class making a small stool, sharpening and eating. People have complained about not having enough time and doing only exercises without a final result. my idea was that people didn't want to pay for repeating the same joint several times in a project but seems that the joints in abstracto are not so interesting as for me. This class will be far more expensive than previous ones and will require a basic toolset and sharpening gear. I will provide dimensioned wood for the project. Lunch will still be a community thing.

More socrates

Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs but differs, in that I attend men and not women, and I look after their souls when they are in labor, and not after their bodies and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth.

Well, mine differs from his in that I look after the way they use their body and the triumph of my art is in seeing a new truth taking shape under my eyes. A truth made out of wood, time and spirit.

Matias' new "pisito"

Holds with ease a cup of tea and a glass of wine. Rauli and wax finish. 

It's sunny here

It's sunny. That means there's fruit. That means there's juice. That means there are plenty of naps.

Actually I've been signing papers, working a bit, moving stuff from one house to the other, and in general looking for ways to start a new life here for the now 3 of us. Yes, we got a dog. More on her later.

Today was the second day of a class in Chile (no pictures sorry, too busy) and got two mails from guys in Netherlands.

One of them was Roeland from www.meubelmakerijbrekelmans.nl

When I knew that he was coming, and after checking the tools he made, I knew I had found a new home for one of my kanna blades I had there in Europe. It's part of my drug dealing job. The first for free and then you start charging for it, just that I forget always the second step.

Anyway, here two videos Roeland made, first a small kataba he started during the class in Friesland and then a kanna sole repair. I bet these won't be the last japanese tool related videos we will see from him.

Enjoy.

Edit: and what he says about the kanna: Ben echt heel blij met deze (gekregen) Kanna er gaat echt een hele nieuwe wereld voor mij open ik schaaf al 28 jaar handmatig maar deze benadering is een openbaring, dat wil overigen niet zeggen dat japanse schaven beter schaven maar dat ze simpelweg op een andere manier werken. Ga me in ieder geval verdiepen in deze materie en vind het leuk om deze technieken me eigen te maken. Je kunt met een scherpe Kanna zonder veel kracht heerlijk schaven en de controle over de schaaf is zeer natuurlijk en makkelijk eigen te maken (vele malen makkelijker als het leren schaven met westerse schaaf) In mijn beleving :)

Singing my little song

In one of his interviews, Francisco Varela, the great Chilean neurophenomenologist, says that scientists are like a modern troubadours, singing their little song from place to place and getting food and shelter for it. And so, he says, I go from country to country telling my story about how to the human mind works.

But the modern scientist goes from conference to conference by plane, stays in a good hotel, gives a 15 minutes talk, and gets drunk with taxpayers' money. And to organise that you apply for grants, you work for institutions and need to comply with several rules that you don't really agree with but say it's ok as long as I can keep doing my own little thing.

This weekend I sang my song, a song composed of shavings flying from the wood and metal vibrating to the pass of a file, in the misty flatness of northern Holland, also known as Friesland. We sharpened saws, eat bean soup, and set up and planed with some beautiful kanna.

All this was possible since Don had the great idea of making me give a course/demostratie in his workshop, and arranged everything for it to happen. We came here, got fed and had a bed to sleep in so I could sing my little song saturday in front of a few people and a dog. And we didn't get drunk with taxpayers' money nor costed 4000 euros to organise it, as the conference for the scientists costs.

That was something really funny when I was going as a student to critical philosophy school in Birkbeck, in central London. The school was 600euros or so, we had lectures the whole day in the university, and then later we hit an italian restaurant and kept talking of Derrida and Kant and their relation to Capitalism and how to overthrow it (while eating a very tasty capitalist pizza that's it.)

In that way, the explicit content of their philosophy was undermined by the material organisation of the workshop, or so I felt.

(A similar irony was at play in the Leipzig degrowth conference, where from 50 people 5 years ago the last conference was 5000 or so.)

As usual when we handtool workers meet, we talked about the lost knowledge and how the government, universities and the market are not doing anything to preserve it. Well, that knowledge was created and maintained long before universities, nation states and capitalism existed, and it was alive simply because people cared enough to teach it to others and to learn it from others. From which follows, I think quite clearly, that as long as we learn from and teach each other that knowledge will be alive. We need nothing but to meet and share what we know, and learn what we don't (and hopefully doing it in a way that doesn't destroy what we actually want to save, if you catch my drift.)

Anyway, nuf said. It took me 15000km to finish writing this post, not something I usually do. I leave you with some pictures of the workshop (of course I forgot to take pictures, was too busy checking people file. When my friend Pauli comes to Chile in 2 years I will hire her for taking analog pictures of it.)

Thanks again Don.

Neither a bang nor a whimper

They are not the hollow men:

 And this is Luis doing half a splice in the third day of the class (new record):

 Sebastian and Keiran, our resident DJ and bread master

 Alvaro and Hanna, practicing dove(de)tails

 Keiran making the keys of his marimba with an angentinean bodied french plane

 and one coffee table

 And another coffee table. Tea table actually, with some added functionality

I kind of finished the bench the other day, before the start of the class, but I was fighting all the time for them not to use it. A vice makes you saw harder and worse than needed, so indeed it's a vice.

 and as every flat surface, it attracts tools and other objects.

Hanna needs breath more slowly and relax more:

 And Sebastian is a very slow and very detailed worker who didn't believe the wonders of glue (the dry fit was a tad too gappy), he totally got the rhythm right and the joint nice

That was it. 3 days in a row. I spent today like it was sunday, knackered. Eat, lay down, chat with my brother in the living room, write posts. 

If you didn't get the quote, it was the hollow men by ts elliot. This is how the world ends... and the like. The same guy of waste land and how to tell the dancer from the dance. Those were other times. 

I'm leaving this friday to fortress Europe, a Europe of closed borders and austerity. Not the same place I went to 7 seven years ago. I go to pick up a gal, some tools and say goodbye again to a few good friends. My time in Chile comes to an end, but it actually feels like a beginning. This is how a world begins, not with a bang, not a whimper, but with the sound of shavings flying off the kanna, the sound of steel rubbing against wet stone, the soft sound of a saw being properly used. Gentle sounds, living sounds, human sounds. 

I see the pictures again: "Japanese tools collected by a crazy physicist in Graz find new home in Chile," could be a good caption. I'm looking forward to the next class. 

Saturday's Asado

Very typically chilean: eat meat and drink wine.

But friday night is sharpening night in valpo. French iron, argentinean stone and kiwi hands.

The stone has 2 grits along the length, on part cuts fast and the other slow.

Ok, this morning we started sharpening, because sharpening is the beginning of everything in life. That's 3 sharpeners in a row.

A bit later, the fire was on.

And the dogs working hard as usual. They played with me in the morning and remain tired for the rest of the day. Me too.

Morticing in the smoke, the best way ever to mortice.

 Our good friends vino, papas y tomate.

And western plane being used a la japanese but the other way around.

I put the luthier to make timber framing. At my PhD defense one of the professors said that the most important part of being a teacher is to push people out of their comfort zone. I dig that idea, that's the only way you learn, when you are rambling unknown roads.

 And Sergio to make a tenon (Pablo was doing the mortice, it was hilarious to hear them fight for whom screw it up first)

 That's Sergio, on the back Juan Manuel, and you already know the kiwi

 My work was at the bbq.

 Starters.

And food for the doggies, burning the fat over there.

And wetting the planes and squares. Don't ya love the mix of planes, tools, glasses and people?

 It was a good fun, that much is true.

 Pablo took a picture. I don't like pictures of myself but what the heck, we are making history so let's take a few.

5 days

I was just taking sun in the hammock, last rays of sunday sun. Slightly coldish and hang-overish sunday. Yesterday we danced, quite a lot, and drunk no less. Feels like I found the city I like.

Anyway, in the hammock being lazy, thinking on the same sounds that come from both sides of the quebrada. In front, poor and dirty, they hammer and build, drink beer, have loud music. On this side, slightly less poor and dirty, we (or rather Keiran as I'm catching sun) hammer and build, have loud music. Chisels cutting wood on both sides, men building shit on both sides. Just need to bring a sharpening stone to the next hill and show em a bit of what sharp tools do.

And bring my best friend after a day of classes:

Kross golden, the closest I've found to a real ale in this forsaken country.

Anyway, this was the course yesterday, the plane day. Keiran is reading about the splice joint he's finishing now.

About the class: 4 people are not twice two, they are four. Newcomers got sharpening almost the whole morning and oldies got planes. They talked a lot, made jokes, got to know each other. They compete too. It's a complete different dynamics than just 2 guys. I like it, and think that's a really good number, so good that I actually said no to the fifth person who wanted to take the september course. Do you realise there are no saws on this picture? First rule of the saw club applies here, when not in use, they are hanging indoors. Chisels and planes are tougher, but saws need care, love and a wall.


This's the reason of the title, after 5 days of "classes" ( 3 official, one to finish a dovetailed box that's still not finished, and one day of massive planing and squaring the beams) Keiran is cutting a splice rabbeted dadoed tenoned joint, or as we like to call it here, TTsplice for obvious reasons

A few shots from the class. Pablo helping with a beam, Victor squaring a dai blank. He has serious issues with position though

 Shavings!

Oh yeah, die Roubo, we don't really need ya.

That's the joint started.

 sawing

 Marking

The guy in front was also working, moving some soil around

 Azebiki rules.

 And the dogs play

 a lot

We used the saw because there was an ugly knot on top

and moar teas

Took him like 4 hours to cut half of the splice, and T's need still some paring. I didn't really do anything but just saying don't fuck it up, be careful, use a wider chisel, and played a bit with my slick, man, it's a sweet tool. Does that sound sexual? not intended.

You know, it really starts to make sense, to seem possible, to make things better on the other hill. And then the next one, and then yet another. And then you go to a bar, as we did yesterday, and the hand made bar would not be a relic from another time and another world, but something that a friend of you made last month and that you made the profile plane for it. Beer tastes better on such bars. Girls dance sexier too, and look more beautiful and poetry is written on those tables, and men have conversations, which is a dance with words where souls build each other and take each other out of the mud of poor existence. Then death comes and you are not there but the tables remain as do the books and the dancing. And a poem remains maybe, or a way of doing things. Eggplants with tomato sauce and cheese on top, as my mother used to cook.

A feeling has gotten me, and it's the feeling of no regrets. I don't miss in the slightest the money, the travels, the architecture of europe, the 8hours a day in front of a computer screen. I've got something else here, something that there was simply not possible. Like you are doing the right thing, you know? You see skills pass (or maybe been born) into another person and the confidence grow on them, and we are keeping those japanese carpenters who owned the tools before me alive, they resurrect in us and we live through them and with them, if that makes any fucking sense. And that happens here, with the beer, the music, the dirt and the dogs.