Oh the Glamour

Just when you thought my life could not get more exciting, the thrills increase. Today I received three new woodworking videos!

I know you’re all aflame with envy.

I already have two woodworking books. But there is something about a video that a book can’t match. It may take an entire tedious page to explain something that can be demonstrated in seconds in a video. And besides, it’s just wonderful, watching people who can make their tools do what they’re supposed to do.

I got a video on hand planes. I watched that one first. It features a woodworking instructor named Mario Rodriguez. It was a little upsetting. Tools are almost always more complicated than you expect; you can’t just grab them out of the box and do your thing. You would think hand planes would be exceptions to the rule, but they’re not. For example, they’re usually not flat on the bottom when you buy them. You have to flatten them yourself. And the blades are worthless until you sharpen and square them up, and you pretty much have to have a jig to do this.

I don’t remember all the planes he used. Or maybe I do. Let’s see. One was called a smooth plane, which is also a Stanley #4. You use this to smooth out the sides of boards. In the video, some guy pretending to be his clueless beginner buddy came in, complaining that his smooth plane was giving him tearout. Mario explained what a fool he was, taking his plane apart, flattening the bottom, and fixing the blade. Then Mario had the guy try to use it, and he gave him hell over his stance and technique. But by the time the guy left, his plane was in dandy shape. All it took was a 10″ grinder, a sheet of glass, some spray-on glue, some emery cloth, a strange little pocket square, and some expensive jigs. For $3000, you can have a nice hand plane, too!

He brought out a 24″ long plane, which, I think, was called a jointing plane. You can guess what it’s used for. In addition to jointing, it flattens things. Pretty cool.

One of the things I really liked was the shoulder plane. They’re small and narrow. You can use them to fix the shoulders on tenons. I can see how this would be really useful when you screw something up using a power tool, and you need to take like four thousandths off of your work.

He also used a block plane, which has the blade at the very front. You can use it in confined spaces. Neat.

He had some old planes which are no longer made. One of them cuts dadoes. In case you don’t know, a dado is a slot that goes across a piece of wood. For example, you might have two parallel pieces of wood with horizontal dadoes, and you slide shelves into the dadoes. With the dado plane, you clamp a straightedge to the work, and you run the plane back and forth beside it, and it sinks into the work, making a dado. It’s surprisingly fast. I can understand how a skilled worker might prefer it to a router some of the time. He also had a set of planes that made tongues and grooves. Wild. These are fantastic tools, so of course they quit making them.

I guess he was wrong when he said they didn’t make them any more. I’ve found them online. I guess he meant the big companies quit.

I also got a Pat Warner router video. This guy appears to be kind of a nut. Routers are his whole life. His garage is a workshop, and he has 20 routers in it. He has a magical router table he made himself, with a fence that has a dial scale on it that reads in thousands of an inch. I don’t know if he actually makes anything except for templates and dust, but he’s ready if he ever gets an idea.

He did a bunch of stuff with his routers. He taught about templates and bearings and dovetails and so on. And he said he probably uses his drill press more than his routers. Everyone seems to love the drill press, and of course, I do not have one.

He has his own router website, and he makes and sells doodads to make your router work better. I guess it’s a pretty cool life, for a guy who likes routing that much. And he has written at least one very popular router book.

One thing I notice from watching these videos is that guys who are experts with one particular tool like to talk about how versatile it is, and how you can use it to do stuff you would otherwise need other tools to do. This must be what they mean, when they say, “When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Pat Warner did some jointing with his router; that was cool.

The plane guy surprised me by using a really crappy benchtop jointer in his video. He had a 10″ grinder, and he used a jointer he probably bought at KMart. Do you have any idea what a 1750-rpm 10″ grinder costs? Neither do I, but I’ll bet it’s at least $500. Let me check.

Okay, it looks like they start at over $700. I have to wonder if he bought the right tool. You can get a jim-dandy wet grinder kit from Grizzly for $160, and I’ll bet it works just as well.

I don’t think I’ll ever need a jointer. The table saw and router seem capable of fixing problems with the edges of boards. But a planer would be hard to simulate.

I don’t want to get out of control. I just want to be able to do basic woodworking, so when I finally get ready to fix my stupid outdoor BBQ cabinet, I won’t have to do it the way I did last time, with a circular saw, a drill, and Og’s favorite tool, the Workmate. It amazes me, though, how many tools you need to do anything beyond monkey-grade work.

I think it might be fun to make a humidor. I don’t need one, but my dad can always use one. I’m not totally satisfied with the expensive one I got him a few years ago. As a Christian, I’m not totally sure I want to encourage anyone to use tobacco, but it’s not like I’m buying him cigarettes. It’s an interesting question. Cigarettes and snuff and chewing tobacco are unquestionably evil, because they’re addictive and they give people cancer. Cigars and pipes, on the other hand, rarely addict anyone, and you have to be really dedicated to give yourself cancer with either. The risk is about ten percent of the risk cigarette smokers face.

Coincidentally, I also have a video on making boxes. Yes, there is a guy who does this as a profession, and he makes videos. He probably lives next door to Pat Warner. I can’t wait to check it out.

I wrote about the book of Job earlier this week, and got a few comments from readers. I have always had a hard time figuring this book out, because it makes it seem like God was incredibly harsh with Job, and the reason was not clear. After all, the beginning of the book calls Job righteous, so you would think he would have a fairly blessed life. I think I finally understand the story.

The first part of the book seems to show that God approved of Job. He called him blameless and upright. But when catastrophe befell him, Job became somewhat self-righteous. He said he wanted God to appear, so he could make his case to him. He felt sure he could convince God that it was wrong to afflict him.

When God appeared and Job encountered him in person for the first time, Job realized how paltry his own virtue was compared to God’s. He realized he was unfit to question God, and he repented of the notion that he could justify himself.

I suspect that the lesson of the book is that life may contain great pain, and you will not always know why, and you are never right to question God for allowing it to happen. The answer is to search your heart and mind for anything you could have done to cause your problems, and if you can’t figure it out, thank God for the suffering, on the assumption that there is good in it which you can’t perceive.

I believe that on the whole, good people have better lives than bad people, and their lives definitely tend to end better, because bad behavior generally leads to a life that deteriorates sharply in quality as that behavior bears fruit. But Corrie ten Boom and her family were imprisoned by the Nazis. Eleven of the disciples were martyred, as was Paul. I think that’s correct, anyway. We will not be completely free from the threat of disaster until we leave this world. That’s just how it is. Corrie ten Boom’s sister Betsie taught her she had to thank God for every misfortune. She learned that lesson in a filthy barracks full of fleas. If you’ve never been attacked by fleas, believe me, it’s no fun. It’s like being jabbed with dozens of needles. If you read The Hiding Place, you know the fleas turned out to be a great blessing.

I think this is part of the magic of faith. You may experience unpleasant things, but you become capable of finding the good in them. It’s a bizarre kind of alchemy. It can make you treasure the memories of some of your worst experiences. You can actually learn to be grateful during a time of suffering.

Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know. But Job seems to make more sense to me now.

I don’t know all the answers. Just because I have a couple of saws and a router doesn’t mean I know as much as a certain famous carpenter.