Answer to too much glue

Reader's must have had experience, as have I, in spreading too much glue or in having tiny and precise applicators plug up and require laborious cleaning. 

The answer can be found in Kindergarten. The Kindergarten plastic glue spreader is available in mass quantities from Amazon https://amzn.to/4monpcd

Buy in whatever quantities you want, knowing that even with the strongest glue that it comes off and you can use again. I bought enough to share with students and friends. https://amzn.to/3IOwRae

Spreading glue for linings in the photo, I laid a bead of glue with a conventional glue bottle, then used the spreader ti move some of the glue into corners. Easy.

Make, fix and create...

 

The point about Polyani

Polyani was in agreement with John Ruskin though at a later date, when he noted that not all human experience is recorded or even communicable in what we can say. For example, please tell me how you can recognize your dog from another in the same litter. You may look for distinguishing marks, or the wag of her tail, but there are points of recognition that defy language to convey, and yet the recognition is immediate. 

"Let the youth once learn to take a straight shaving off a plank, or draw a fine curve without faltering, or lay a brick level in its mortar, and he has learned a multitude of other matters which no lips of man could ever teach him." --John Ruskin, "Time and Tide", 1883

Having routed the parts of the apron, I'm making the stretchers that strengthen the legs of the desk. To do so, I use a small  4-in hand rasp to round the shoulders of the tenons to match the rounded shoulders of the mortises. This is shown in the photos.

Make, fix and create...

Polyani's walking stick

Michael Polyani, in his description of tacit knowledge described how a blind man's walking stick would at first register in his consciousness within the sensory framework of his hand and mind, but with practice would extend toward sensing in his mind the surface of a his path as well. Tools have both sensory and transformative relationships to the reality in which we live, and the human hand is the connective link. 

Today I'll be sanding and routing desk apron parts in preparation for assembly.

Make, fix and create...

The use of the hands

 Of the motor functions you will notice that as working movements become skilled patterns, they no longer require conscious attention to motor activities. Instead, they become conveyances through which other object qualities can be known as those objects are transformed. An example from woodworking involves the holding of a chisel. For a trained carpenter, the hand itself disappears from consciousness, but for a beginner, the proper grip and the angle of the wrist take tremendous concentration. 

As skilled movement is acquired the hand requires less consciousness and the mind senses only the engagement of the cutting edge at the end of the tool in the surface of the material being shaped. In essence, the hands move out of the way of direct consciousness to allow direct access of the mind to the surface qualities of objects. It is part of the miracle of the hands that they are empowered to act in seamless unconscious harmony with thought, so perhaps it is only natural that the importance of their contributions to our learning would go unnoticed in modern education.

There are a number of areas of research that tell us that the hands must not be overlooked in education. As expert musicians will testify, the playing of a musical instrument critically involves manual dexterity and sensitivity (see Wilson, 1986), and research suggests that playing of instrumental music in school has a significant effect on the development of math proficiency (Catterall et al. [2002, Reference] This research was co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. It is truly astounding how rarely the United States Government is able to take its own advice. It is a clear case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Make, fix and create...

Joints...

I have almost all the mortise and tenon joints formed for the writer's desk. Enough for one day. Next I'll make the drawer guides and then the drawer.

Make, fix and create...

Emerge Magazine

Emerge Magazine has published their latest issue and contains my article about Kindergarten, "A garden of children:" https://emerge-magazine.com/a-garden-of-children/ 

Make, fix and create...

Mortises

I decided to go to the woodshop while it's relatively cool out and managed to rout the mortises in desk legs which will be joined to the aprons with mortise and tenon joints. Cutting the tenons will be a lengthier and more complex procedure on the table saw.

Make, fix and create...
 

A tower of boxes...

There is a heatwave in Northwest Arkansas, and the AC in the shop is having trouble keeping up. As an alternate to keep my hands busy, I'm finishing a few remnants from earlier projects in the finish area (one end of the house). 

This is a tower of boxes left over from my book Beautiful Boxes, Design and Technique published in 2014. It is held together by rare earth magnets.

Make,  fix and create...

Desk top

I've begun working on a writing desk. The top is cut to shape and assembled from two wide boards. It is routed. 

Tasks that remain are shaping the legs, making the aprons and stretchers and making a drawer. A little bit each day will bring it to completion.  If cared for it will last a hundred years or more.

Make, fix and create...

Four corner match and three corner match How to

Making 3 corner and 4 corner grain matches on mitered boxes.

Testing Glancy's No 1 Penetrating Oil Finish on Inlaid Boxes SD 480p

 This is a test of Glancy's No. 1 Penetrating Oil Finish.

In days past

In days past one could tell the species of wood being cut by the sound of the axe, even at a distance through the forest. Not so, now, so we go to more extreme efforts to get folks acquainted with the beauty and diversity of our native woods. 

I sign the names of the woods used in making my small inlaid boxes on the underside, helping folks now and in future generations to thus know that the woods have taken part in the creation as much as I. 

Each box is a collection of natural woods in natural colors and a gift to subsequent generations.

It's time to sign boxes.

Make, fix and create...

Twenty eight boxes

These are 28 inlaid boxes, assembled, shaped and ready for sanding. They are walnut and linden and inlaid with a variety of local hardwoods.

Make, fix and create. 

A simple box

A simple box may have four sides and a top and bottom but are things really all that simple? There are a huge range of techniques involved as suggested by my students as they exercise their own creative inclinations. I will have a three day class in October.

I am currently working on a few  (28) boxes to sell though galleries and online.

Make, fix and create...

 

Three tiny Tiner

Three of my tiner arrived safely in Stavanger, Norway, while the ship replica of the Restauration, departed there for a voyage to America celebrating the immigration of Norwegians in America. The Restauration was the first ship carrying Norwegian families to America. This is the bi-centennial year. 

Tiner is the Norwegian plural of tine, meaning cheese box, and rather than them being used in the making of cheese as they once were, they've taken on a ceremonial role as gifts for weddings and special events. They are useful as well for keeping beautiful and useful things.

The tiny tiner are shown on a candle stand made from a piece of twice recycled Douglas Fir that had arrived in Stavanger as drift wood (a mast), then spent years as a barn timber before being crafted into a work of art.

The Restauration is expected to arrive in October.

Make, fix and create..

 

Today, happy 4th

In the shop I'm inlaying 27 boxes while out back folks are regrouting the flagstone patio, and playing ethnic music. I am thankful for skilled workers as we all could best be. How do we change things so that all would be afforded the dignity they deserve? Let's welcome all those who work to make the world and their own (for it is ours too) a better place.

Otto Salomon had suggested that the manual training Sloyd had two effects. One was economic in that it made us better workers. A second effect was formative, meaning that it had more general effects in making us more human. For that reason, it was offered to all people, including those going on to advance degrees, or jobs in religion or politics, for it would generate a respect for all labor, and sense to assess whether or not it was suitable work. As John Ruskin had said, Plane a plank or level a brick in its mortar and you'll have learn things that the lips of man could never tell. Though here, I'm making a feeble attempt  to tell.

Are you worried about the world? Do something about it. 

Make, fix and create...

twice the effect

The hands play a particularly important role in the development of human intelligence in that they are both sensory and active. We see and hear and that's basically the end of things for some folks. We might see something or hear something and be changed within, but the hands have the power to change the external reality of things. We touch and things are disrupted and transformed by our touch. 

If the purpose of schooling is only superficial, we do that quite well. If we are looking for deeper effect, we know how, and that is to make certain that the hands are engaged creatively in learning... that they are allowed to respond creatively with the hands to what the other senses have allowed them to feel.

ESSA, our Eureka Springs School of the Arts, has become one of my happy places because it is full of people learning to their deepest effect and are happily transformed be the experience. We may grow tired, and frustrated on occasion but the joy of creation wins out. We do things that we did not know that we could do, and in the process make the world a better place.

The photograph is the work of a friend and Arkansas Treasure, Hank Kaminsky. The words spell peace in a number of world languages, and as the globe spins  our hands and fingers tell us we are living with the same hopes. 

Make, fix and create...