Raising a Real Woodworker

We never know what will stick with our kids. We hope it’s the good things, but we can’t predict if they will remember to be polite to their elders, or the vocabulary to use when someone cuts you off in traffic. I spent some time recently helping my son build his first piece of furniture, and was happy to see that good things had rubbed off on him.

When Hunter was younger we spent a lot of time together in the shop. I put a coping saw and spokeshave in his hand back then, and together we made all manner of things, mostly toys and other amusements. He was one of the few kids in Cub Scouts who did his own work on his Pine Wood derby car (although I will admit to fine-tuning the wheels and axles), and we still have and use the bird feeder, but when he discovered computers, he left woodworking behind.

He’s 17 now and needed a new desk (for his computer). I convinced him he could build a nicer one than we could afford to buy, and I convinced the other editors here that it would make a nice article for the magazine. The desk is done, the article is in progress, and it will appear in an upcoming issue of Popular Woodworking. As Hunter worked on the desk, we reminisced about the things he made when he was younger. At one point he mentioned that he was feeling like a “real” woodworker; he was enjoying the process and was comfortable with the machines and tools.

That was something I had noticed. He was taking to tools and procedures he hadn’t done before and catching on quickly. When I handed him a dovetail saw he stuck his index finger out as he grabbed it without thinking about it, and it only took him a minute or two to be able to use a block plane effectively. He recognized the band saw as an efficient version of the coping saw and had no trouble adapting to it. But the ultimate proof of his being a “real” woodworker came when we took the desk home and put it together in his room.

As we assembled the desk, he spotted a place on the inside where the finish had dripped and left a run. We hadn’t noticed it before because it was in a hidden spot, and no one would ever see it again. He ran his hand over it, picked at it a little with his fingernail and said, “I really ought to fix that.” Later on, as his mother gushed about how nice it was, he began to point out the flaws, small things that no one else would ever notice: an edge that could have used another minute of sanding; an area his brush had missed on the second coat; the place where he leaned the trim router just enough to leave a tiny divot in an otherwise-clean edge.

We told him to look at the big picture and not be such a perfectionist, but I knew that was useless advice. He picked up the way I and a lot of other woodworkers look at our work, and I don’t believe there is anything he can do about it. He is now the owner of a pretty nice desk. For as long as he has it, people will be impressed with the fact that he made it himself. And when he allows himself, he too will be impressed with his effort and justifiably proud of the result.

But that unseen drip will always bother him, and he will consider now and then what he would do differently, or more thoroughly, if he had the chance to make it again. And that is what makes him a “real” woodworker.

, Robert W. Lang

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