Modern Vespa

I've always like the subtle silvery colors of fumed oak. I've never used it tho. Thx for the note on it's origins. Keep learning!!

Miguel

Hey! Neat a shout out to a local guy from near me!

I don't think of myself as an innovator. But I'm always trying to make things better, more efficient. Today's robots are taking over most of the blue collar jobs.
When the assembly line at a big auto plant shuts down, costing millions of lost dollars, the bosses won't be looking to an innovator. They'll be hollering for the guy to fix it!
As an aside, fixing robots can be dangerous. Once the robot is back on line, it can swing around and whack the guy who was helping it.

[quote="Miguel"] Its not a rant. Its just true. Trades do not pay well over time. They used to. While it takes skill, and lots of it, it doesn't take that long for a newbie to pick up your trade and undercut your rates, even if they aren't as good.

Best
Miguel[/quote
It usually takes at least 10 good years to make a decent plasterer. Other trades are probably the same. But a lot of contractors are willing to settle for less quality if the price is lower and then they pocket the difference. We constantly get calls to fix other peoples work.

I may be a weirdo, but I have a BA, yet chose to do what I enjoyed the most.

Meantime, retired Master Hand-craftsman, technical area.

A very satisfying life for me.

Fine Woodworking tuned me in some years ago. It's really does react to Chestnut and the wormy variety has naturally (if a worm hole is natural?) dark, nearly black holes in it plus when a nail hole shows up it's often black stained too. It doesn't darken white oak as much but some other oaks it does.
If anyone wants to try this w/o getting into chemistry grade ammonia and gas mask processes just buy the stronger version at ACE Hardware. It sells for about $6 gallon (construction & janitorial grade) and can be used to mix ones own glass cleaner mixed with alcohol.
It goes into the wood as will an alcohol based stain or any aniline dye.

Kantuckid, respect. You know your stuff.

Man, in Europe, you want to buy some ammonia, even weaker formulas, the folks get wary and want to call the POlice. Bombs.

The stuff surely cleans well.

When I was an industrial mechanic/millwright (Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co-huge plant) I worked with a fellow mechanic who had a Masters in math and there were others like that who preferred hands on, hourly work that also required problem solving, layout,etc., but in what I'll call a more open setting-if "working for the man" is free?
I was 30 when I took my last shot at what ended up being my last career in tech education. We now live on our teacher retirement checks.
Job story: There was a time when I lost my job due to a facility closing and only a few years into that last career. We had three babies under 3 years old and I got a job offer to be the counselor at a Federal Job Corps Center in the Bitteroot Mtns. of Montana. The offer came in the winter while we were living in a rented farmhouse out on a remote ridge in the county where we still live.
We were getting to our car via a snow sled pulled nearly a mile out to where our 1976 Toyota Corolla was parked. I had to pass on the job of my dreams in the Rockies. Life events are not timed well sometimes.
I did FT woodworking while layed off and sold it out at craftshows. At that very time I was entertaining becoming a FT chairmaker but after my return to school and birth of our twins I lacked the guts to try becoming one of those "starving artists".
To put some perspective on skilled trade wages, I just used google inflation adjustment to see how my last yearly earnings translate to in todays economy-it amounts to $175,000 per year MORE! than my last education job payed in which I was a public HS principal.
I'll tell you that I did enjoy sleeping with my wife and going home to my family which would have taken many years if I'd stayed in seniority based shift work.

Kantuckid, life evolves often other than what a person plans. You did well. Be proud.

My area, Germany, there is a great lack of qualified, private sector and industrial level, workers in skilled hand craft trades. This has for centuries been the hallmark of European culture and trade. Read, Made in Germany. Metal workers, where are they?

The background talents of this old trademark has dwindled. Skilled craftsmen, the demand is great.

Nowadays, kids study to become maybe more stupid than ever before, we have lawyers who don't have a bite to eat....yet will sue the brains out of a dead person. Germany has to import physicians, workers to learn a decent trade, and so on and so forth.

Woodworking, metal working, and basic tool usage was a standard procedure back in my school days.

A shame that these hands on things have become obsolete.

Fixing a leaking water pipe, basic woodworking knowledge, getting a feel for cement....a must for young boys, my opinion.

Back on track with manual arts... Great personal stories above. Thanks for posting them.

I've have tried over the years to combine my technical background into my woodworking. About a decade ago, I designed a collection of pieces I called the "Prime Series". I've always liked numbers and prime numbers especially. Prime numbers are numbers that are divisible by themselves and 1 and result in a whole number. The first 7 prime numbers are 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 and 13. The Prime Series evolved over several months of thinking about it on bicycle rides. I did one piece for each of the first 7 prime numbesrs. I thought I'd post a few of them over the next week or so. Here is "Number 11". Its about 20" wide and 15" tall and 8" deep. It is made with cherry, walnut, black palm, brazilian Cherry, turquoise, other stones, and a few other woods. It single drawer has been holding incense since it was finished. The "primeness" is indicated by the face: only the prime numbers are called out and at the end of each indicator is a stone. Number 11 is larger and a different stone. The stone on the top rotates once a minute and acts as the second hand. Ms Miguel found the perfect name for this piece: "Prime Time".

Pieces like this take me forever to design, figure out how to make, execute, and finish. And I almost always change the design along the way. I never do measured drawings but work from freehand sketches to get the proportions right. Then, I need to make sure I've got the stock of the right color and size so many times, I change the design to match the woods I've got. I always use hardwoods (they are easier to work with, especially for small pieces), and always use a variety of contrasting woods, plus stone, metal, and occasionally lights. I have never made the same piece twice. It's one of the advantages of being a serious amateur and not a professional. It doesn't matter how long it takes.

Best
Miguel

MichaelG- To add emphasis to your mention of how the manual arts tradition declined in Germany as the USA, I'll add this: I worked for several years as a foreman in a meatpacking plant in my native Kansas. It was a broad product line company of ~ 450 employees operating in Topeka, KS & Okmulgee, OK. Primarily smoked meats & sausages and began by the son of German immigrants, Fred Ohse. Fred was a very old man by the time I came on and the plants primary active employee was the Sausage Master/Maker, a German immigrant whose family escaped WWII as the Fascists began to take over certain industries in the late 1930's. We called him "Sauerkraut John" and I forget his last name.
To my point on German manual arts, John's family owned a sausage company in Germany and even though he was the owners son he still had to serve a 7 year apprenticeship before he became a true part of the operation. When John came to the USA they landed in New York state and he soon gained a college degree from Cornell U there.
A Sausage Master is the one person who creates and maintains the recipes as used for production. (I suppose a similar position that's better known due to brewings current popularity here in USA would be the "Brewmaster". John kept the recipes in a company safe. My first job there was a union, "company pick" job as the spice blender, probably due to me couple years of college at the time. The spice blender was the only other person aside from John who not only had access to the recipe book but I actually used it each day. And so it was through that job I became friends with the old many John who'd come up through Germany's manual arts tradition.

What's the old saying?
"Life is what happens while you're planning your career."

One student's manual arts experience...

I went to furniture making school for 10-12 grades. I'd decided in 9th grade that I wasn't likely to go to college so chose furniture making. I say this as if it was a well thought out decision but I only vaguely remember putting any thought into it at all. My mum was supportive of it and my father never said anything about it. The only person against me going was my 9th grade algebra teacher who saw something in me that didn't think it was the right thing for me to do. Being a somewhat wayward youth, I ignored her and off to "The Voc", as we called the vocational school, I went.

The Voc had about 450 student in about 18 disciplines. It was a building that was adjacent to the high school but we were not allowed into the high school except for lunch and even then, we had our own separate time. The school was boys only. "Majors" included furniture making, painting and decorating, sheet metal, automotive repair, machine shop, electrical, electronics, printing, and probably a couple others I don't recall. Each major was assigned a shop uniform color, furniture making was grey, that we had to purchase from the Army-Navy store.The Voc was sort of the dumping ground for those that were likely to fail in high school but at least the city was providing skills training.

The program broke each class into two sections. Section A was in the shop on the odd weeks while section B was in "related" classes: drafting, shop math, and probably a few other subjects. I was pretty good at drafting and did enjoy it. We also had to take some basic history and english/writing classes during the week we were in the "related" classes.During the even weeks, Section B would be in the shop and section A in the related classes. School was from 800-330 with a 1/2 hour break for lunch. My shop teacher, Tudor Jones, and related teacher, Walter Wallace, were cranky guys, somewhat burnt on dealing with outta control boys. Fist fights were common and often spilt into the street after school and surrounded my most everyone in the school. Odd but I don't recall a teacher ever coming out to break up a fight but they must have noticed them. No one ever really got hurt much, I never saw a knife or any other weapon, but that was many decades ago.

The furniture making shop was big, probably 300 x 50 feet. Three rooms: a bench room where handwork was done, a machine room, and a lumber room. The benches and tools were professional and Tudor Jones was adamant about taking care of them. He was always sharpening something. At the end of each day, the shop had to be cleaned and all tools put away before anyone left, a habit I still have today. Even if one tool was missing from the tool room, we all searched till it was found. Grades 10, 11, and 12 all worked in the shop at the same time.

Projects were assigned. Each designed to teach new skills. Some students were more serious than others. Looking back on it, I wish I were more serious about it. Seems like my social lot in life got in the way of focusing on school.

There were group projects as well. There were always 3 or 4 grandmother and grandfather clocks in various stages of construction. They were always being made for some teacher or a teachers friend or someone else. Seemed like we did about one project every week or so. At the end of each year, we did our own individual projects. In the related classes, we'd draft up the upcoming projects and build parts lists. But we'd have to do the drawings over again in the shop class that were full size on butcher paper (I think). My mum kept one of my projects all her life and myself sister couldn't stand to part with it when she died so she has it someplace in her garage. I did get a chance to see it sometime ago. It was nothing special honestly. I wish I knew about taking pride in projects but that's something I learned much later in life. Boston, at least my part of it, was not a very nurturing place to grow up and pride didn't seem to be a word anyone knew or treasured.

When I graduated, I ended up taking a job in a hardware store for a year and then finally left Boston, chasing a girl to Ohio. I've used my furniture making and drafting skills over the years throughout life but never did furniture making professionally. I don't regret that but do vividly remember those days at "The Voc" and continue to lean on those skills I did learn.

Some of the students went on to woodworking colleges like North Bennett Street School or Wentworth. I always thought about doing that and I wonder what I'd be doing today if I had. Alas, I've build a lot of furniture in spite of not doing it professionally. I have a small but well provisioned shop. Over the years, I have squirreled away fine woods and have plenty for the rest of life.

Like many I suspect, I go through phases where I do lots of projects, then get burnt on them and don't do any for a while. Over the last few days, I'd been working on a segmented turning that is 12" dia x 24" tall as a base for a sculpture Ms Miguel had just finished. Segmenting means that the total piece is made up of individual pieces of wood glued together and then turned. The base was about 50 lbs. I was about 20 minutes from finishing and the entire thing flew apart, almost like an explosion. When things like this happen, I shut down the shop for the day because I become frustrated, pissed and discouraged and I know I'm at risk of getting hurt if I did further work in the shop. But this morning, just to make myself feel better and show at least something I did that worked, I turned this small, segmented bowl. I'd glued it up about a year ago but never finished it. I did this as a small exercise in preparation for a series of small segmented turnings I want to make. And it has inspired me to get back to that series of small pieces.

Best
Miguel

Miguel: That is a cool story, and equally-cool finished work.

Wow. I admire people who can create like that. I have to say that school across the world needs a rethink. Our day and age, you can learn a lot with just watching a YouTube video. Industrial Arts, Home Economics, and Shop classes are great but expensive and hard to support when school systems can't even support things like music, math, reading, etc.

In our community, we have an Area Technical College that high school kids can go and learn. They can take electrical work, plumbing, carpentry, and even computer programming and web design.

I feel like students need days if not weeks of experimentation to find their niche. Once a week in Mr. Goosebaum's class making a bowl doesn't really inspire learning in everyone. I took a job in college as a busboy and ended up the restaurant's assistant manager and the sous chef. It was a great two years and I developed skills I still use today.

So...I am against half-way "shop" classes that make you feel stupid because you don't have skills and can lose a digit or two. However, I am completely for a place where kids can go and explore things that interest them and giving them time to see if there is a trade out there hidden inside of them.

I know if when I was 15 years old I had been able to take a basic course or two in mechanics and welding I would have been a better mechanic. I worked with a guy who did go to a tech college not that far from here. I was impressed that he could just pick up a carburetor and point out the various circuits and what each one did.

My self I had to get by by just knowing all those little holes needed to be clean!

And if I had an English teacher who would have accepted an instruction paper on how to rebuild a Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engine my writing would have improved too!

When I was in high school in the late 70 have had Industrial Art, Wood Shop, Metal Shop, but the mac daddy class to get into was "Maintenance and Repair" You learned Brick laying, home Electric, Plumbing, Auto Repair, Welding, had wood and metal equipment from lathes to band saws. It was an all around class that got your hands on everything so you could see what you liked doing.
When it snowed the buses pulled up and we would put their chains on for them.
I turned wrenches for a living for 10 years after that and 2 years in collage auto repair classes.
And it wasn't once a week it was everyday. Best class I has in school.

I taught Industrial Arts for 30 years. Throughout the years, students came back and thanked me. They commented that the program helped them make the decision to become architects, engineers, etc.

Cloud, respect. Great topic and former students coming back after years must be very satisfying for you.

I can still remember well the "Shop" area of my Jr. High School, brick building set off from the rest of the complex.

The smells! Metal and WD40 and grinding off flash...Oh my, fresh cut wood!! I still love it.

I knew then I was not cut out to sit in an office, like my Dad.

Hands on, and don't look back.

I'm 68 now, and have personally enjoyed and have benefited from learning from the ground up a solid metal-based tech trade. From apprentice to journeyman to master.

Daily satisfaction and knowing you've learned well and are suited for the trade is a huge plus. Also with acquired licensing knowledge, I can open a shop in most of the US states, all of the UK, Australia and Asia, and most of Europe. This is a satisfying achievement. Just do it, and learn from other masters, this is the way to go forward.

I don't regret my choice for learning a trade.

I went back to visit the vocational school I went to about 35 years after graduating. The school had shrunk in attendance and had other majors and the furniture making program I graduated from was now teaching home construction. I was warmly welcomed by the principle who sorta remembered me and it was a fine conversation.All the teachers I had were gone except the one that became the principle. I gave a presentation on woodworking projects I'd done over the previous 35 years and tried to help inspire the students. It was a fun day to walk around the shop and school, remember the smell of the place, and visit machines I hadn't seen in all that time. They evidently still ran well. Some of the older machines that were specific to furniture making, like mortise and tensioning machines, shapers and lathes had been replaced with machines more suitable to construction trades like cross-cut saws, impact drivers and portable table saws. Hanging around different locations of the shop were templates used for furniture making projects of old. The furniture projects we did had been replaced by building a house inside the shop. The house was torn down at the end of the year and some materials salvaged (windows, doors, plywood, cabinets). The entire visit was a joy. I've not been back since. Fun memories. And I'm glad I've turned into a lifelong woodworker and have extended my skills to almost all other trades. Its a pretty rare day I have someone in to fix anything in my house. There's a real satisfaction you get from building and fixing things yourself.

Best
Miguel

Hi Miguel, you do wonderful work and obviously enjoy your skills as well, excellent!

I met about 20 years ago a fellow, I believe the trade is now known as "wood engineering". What these guys do with wood is just sensational !!

Forming and construction and planning, is just mind boggling. I do love wood, and happy to see old farmhouses in Austria for instance, 200 years old, sitting there just as straight and true as the day they were finished. Simply amazing.

I do think, if I lived in the USA today, I'd like a real log cabin, maybe better an older one, just outside of town. I'm not a city guy.

Thanks for the feedback. I almost never show any of my stuff unless you come to my house so never get to hear what others thing about it. Can you post some examples. I googled wood engineering and as you'd expect all sorts of things pop up. Woodworking has so many different forms and everyone has favorites. I'm attracted to refined forms that are easy on the eyes and evoke a sense of timelessness. See the image and caption below. But there are many people attracted to "period furniture" 100's of years old or art deco, or rustic, or modern, or playful, or ...
I hope you get to stay in that log cabin for a while sometime soon.

Thx!!
Miguel

This hits it on the head where the remnants of the old economic and social models are still hanging out. You must get [Job] and do [Job] and do [Job] until you die. You cannot do [Other Job] too because you have been assigned. While I am not going to do my own plumbing because Oh-Shit-But-Literally, I can look up on youtube how to hang a door and take it slow and get it right.

You also allude to one of my pet peeves in basically every city council meeting. A certain demographic who will be codenamed "Old People" have lots of complaints about me and my kids and how we Do It wrong. Conversations go approximately:

Oldsters: "Kids these days don't do enough [Thing] in school."
Me: "K, we're in agreement. Vote yes on [Stuff] to fund the [Thing] in the school district. It's right there on the ballot."
TheAncients: "I don't have kids anymore why should I pay for it?"
Me: Bites Tongue. Does not invite them to F off and Literally Die already.

The single cause thinking makes me nuts. Person does thing different from me and different is automatically wrong. Wut? I want thing but do not acknowledge that there is a cost for thing. Wut? Trades or College but NEVER BOTH and everyone must have but one job or interest. Wut?

I make all my money programming, but I get all my satisfaction fixing bikes and teaching people to ride. The world's messy and complicated and changing and we can't have it both back-in-my-day and these-days when we're designing curriculums that work.

A retired police motor officer friend of mine calls them CAVErs: Citizens Against Virtually Everything.

I am certain to remember this term at an inappropriate time to giggle in the future. Thaaaaanks.

[quote="RockyMtnRR"
You also allude to one of my pet peeves in basically every city council meeting. A certain demographic who will be codenamed "Old People" have lots of complaints about me and my kids and how we Do It wrong. Conversations go approximately:

Oldsters: "Kids these days don't do enough [Thing] in school."
Me: "K, we're in agreement. Vote yes on [Stuff] to fund the [Thing] in the school district. It's right there on the ballot."
TheAncients: "I don't have kids anymore why should I pay for it?"
Me: Bites Tongue. Does not invite them to F off and Literally Die already.

The single cause thinking makes me nuts. Person does thing different from me and different is automatically wrong. Wut? I want thing but do not acknowledge that there is a cost for thing. Wut? Trades or College but NEVER BOTH and everyone must have but one job or interest. Wut?

I make all my money programming, but I get all my satisfaction fixing bikes and teaching people to ride. The world's messy and complicated and changing and we can't have it both back-in-my-day and these-days when we're designing curriculums that work.[/quote]
Funny, I kept thinking when my kids were in school that I never had as much homework as they were assigned. Most of it was simply make work too, with very little actual learning taking place yet it would take hours to complete it. I'd like to see more options in schools including arts and "voc". At my son's high school the principal wanted every student in the International Baccalaureate program and woe betide any kid who wanted to do AP instead. My son had all sorts of problems because he wanted to take dual credit. Calculus instead of IB math his senior year. The IB math class didn't cover what he needed for his proposed university major while the dual credit calculus did. We spent hours on the phone getting his grade in it straightened out after the high school "adjusted" the grade the community college teacher gave him down from a 89 to a 69 (aka failure in the dual credit class.) We had to point out that the high school didn't get to do any "adjustment" according to district rules but the high school kept trying to change it. They also put 0s in other classes for some kids, funny the "wrong" grades were only in non IB classes.