Design and Build....Past

 Of the different classes required to take in college, a few of them were more crafts based than aft.  I had to take a jewelry making class and also a woods class.  The teacher was a craftsman who mad wooden furniture so we were encouraged to design and work on items it that media.  I sketched out a lot of things on my paper and he saw the design for this piece. He circled it with his red pen and said "do it" ,  It was a lab class of three hours at a time twice a week.  

I was nineteen or twenty years old and had worked with power tools in high school.  We were told that a true craftsman would cut everything with tools that were not powered by electricity. I struggled with the cutting of walnut wood with a hand saw. Because of the modern design the joints could of been kept simple but the instructor said for me to make the tongue and groove joints to make it more decorative. 

The bottom part had to bee a joint that connected the x with out anything showing.  One had to fit into the other. buy cutting grooves for them to fit into each other. You can see I had to cut tongue and groove for the bottom side pieces also. I really don''t know how I did this with a handsaw.  I figured out today that I had to cut joints to fit into each other for 8 joints.  It meant I had to cut 16 tongues and grooves that had to fit.

Four sets of joints at the top and four at the bottom. I don't even remember the glue up of all these pieces as it was almost 49 years ago. 

I certainly did not know about burl pieces of wood but look at this side of the table. It is the same on the other side of the wood. I don't think I looked that closely at it at that age but now I have a real appreciation for all of its parts. You can see some joints can never be fixed in the top but it is a part of the character of this old table. 

 

I was writing with a whine about how many tongue and grooves I had to cut. Well, I was young and stupid and I made two of these for that class. This is the second one that I need now to rework. It will be a challenge. In total, the two tables required me to cut 32 individual tongue and groove joints. I am still amazed that I was able to do that using a hand saw to cut them out and to fit them together. I guess I was young and really was motivated to make it happen. 

 

 I became an art teacher and I now have time to look back at the teachers that I had in the past. The guy who taught the woods class would show up for the class the first hour and then disappear. At the end of the three hour lab he would return to send us home.  I really didn't think that I got much instruction from him and yet I was successful. The way he admired the finished pieces I always wondered if he stole, borrowed, the design for his own creations.  That was the hippie ear time and he had thick bushy blond hair longer than mine. 

Time will tell as to when I get the second table reworked. Thanks for checking in today.