Category: Honest Labour

Kara Gebhart-Uhl, Christopher Schwarz and I have selected a few of our favorites from “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years” – some have already been posted; there are some still to come. Chris wrote about the project that “these columns during the Hayward years are like nothing we’ve ever read in a woodworking magazine. They are filled with poetry, historical characters and observations on nature. And yet they all speak to our work at the bench, providing us a place and a reason to exist in modern society.”

Our hope is that the columns – selected by Kara from among Hayward’s 30 years of “Chips from the Chisel” editor’s notes – will not only entertain you with the storied editor’s deep insight and stellar writing, but make you think about woodworking, your own shop practices and why we are driven to make. When Australian toolmaker Chris Vesper (vespertools.com) read “A Kind of Order” it prompted him to write a few responses, one of which we give you below.

— Fitz

Everything in its Place

Hands and mind work as one to create when a maker is in the zone – be it woodwork, making furniture, fixing the lawnmower, working on an old car, or machining some gizmo in the sanctity of space that is your workshop on a lathe and milling machine.

When working on a project or even just tinkering the excitement can be palpable, especially when the finish is in sight among the setbacks (and occasional oopsies). The bench is a mess, with tools everywhere, things lost under piles of wood shavings and no cares given. And we all know this one: “That 10mm socket has got to be somewhere,” then many minutes later: “HOW the heck did it get there??!” Clearly too much fun is being had! Time lost equals the inverse of size be it chisels, sockets or even spanners. Big ones are easy to find – but small ones?

In our education as makers we refer to glossy mags or online tutorials that show impeccable workshops with perfect lighting. You may even feel some shame at your own space, so you set personal goals; you dream of what could be. But you can’t see that great pile of crud just out of their camera shots.

As for some professional work, with undersides of tabletops and backs of drawers sanded and polished to within an inch of their lives (not to mention the bits you actually see): this way of work is not for everyone, be it from lack of desire or a skill set not quite up to it. We see this perfection and perhaps gaze over our own work, and wonder at our own pleasing sanctuary of shavings piled up knee-high from attacking tear-out in a board. Perhaps we observe the results of a slightly wonky glue up. We see tools not stored properly and perhaps deteriorating from rust or being banged about – all that work to get those tools shiny the first time is lost.

In the intensity of enjoyable work, things will inevitably slip and chaos creep in. In machining work, the tool cart empties as the bench and floor fill with tools, grease and some strange black goop that gets on everything one touches. In woodworking, the tool cabinet and workbench are similarly affected (minus the black goop, hopefully). After a good, all-absorbing session of work I find it therapeutic to tidy and clean as I think back over the job, the tools used and why, the mistakes and the triumphs. Be it a daily ritual or an end-of-job ritual it’s a nice one to have.

Everything in its place.

But always keep this in mind: When I take a photo for social media you don’t know about the unsightly pile of freaky colored rags or glue encrusted ice-cream containers I just flicked out of the way to make the shot a little better.

Editor’s note: For the next several weeks, we will feature some of our favorite columns from “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward” years, along with some thoughts about why these particular columns hit the mark.

This column from 1960 is so timeless and relatable. There’s the inner nagging we all experience when a workshop or tool chest or pantry or closet has become disorganized, full and unmanageable. And then there’s the quiet scolding we all feel while organizing — “I will never let this happen again.” Next, the sweet satisfaction that accompanies the completed work. (Have you ever, later, stepped into your workshop or opened the closet door just to admire the tidiness?) Then the promises, the resolutions. But seemingly always, life gets in the way, as life does, and the whole cycle repeats itself.

Another reason I love this column? In it, Hayward peels back the gloss and reveals something he struggles with and even discloses some enviousness. For as much as I adore Hayward and his Chips from the Chisel columns, sometimes, especially if I read many in one sitting, I feel, well, exhausted. How could one person be so good at all the things? But here, Hayward recognizes his more human side, allowing him to pass along a lesson with empathy.

Finally, there’s his bit of jealousy. How wonderfully perfect is his discovery that all is not as it seems when comparing his workshed to that of his friend’s? And how often do we all do that, tenfold, now that we have social media showing us only the best of the best of everyone’s lives? For every beautiful piece of furniture shown there was the hidden heartbreaking split. For every organized workspace posted on Instagram you didn’t see what it looked like three days prior. For every smile, you didn’t know about last week’s anguish. And yet, Hayward recognizes the importance of reality — “after that I felt much better” — but also uses the experience to ever-push himself — “although the vision still leads me on, not so much now with a feeling of guilt as of an objective to be attained.”

— Kara Gebhart Uhl

A Kind of Order

We need to achieve a kind of order—that will enable us to keep an eye on things

There are few things more immediately rewarding than having a grand old turn out. It produces a feeling of satisfaction that is positively Jack Hornerish, if it was indeed that nursery-rhyme character who said “What a good boy am I,” at least in anyone like myself who never clears up his workshed until driven to it. When I can find no more space for anything or, more shameful still, when the right size screw of which there should be plenty somewhere simply refuses to come to hand, then I really start in. It is an event more or less annual, usually at this time of the year when home activities are getting well under way again. And never, never does it happen without my passing good resolutions to do this more often in future and, what is more, when dirty, tired but happy I stand back to survey the spick and span result, that at least I will in future keep everything in its place and a place for everything. Alas for good resolutions! Sooner or later one comes up against the time factor; things have to be put away in a hurry, odds and ends accumulate, and the whole business starts all over again.

I can confess this the more openly because for years the standard of tidiness always nagging at the back of my mind was the one glimpsed in the workshed of a friend who had recently moved into a new house. As I stared at the tools neatly ranged in position, garden tools hanging on appropriate nails near the door, carpentry tools in racks above the workbench, I felt awed. For John is an artist as well as a first-rate craftsman, a man whose creative gifts keep him in a state of almost perpetual ferment so that time ceases to have any meaning for him. And yet he could achieve this. What a beauty there was in such order and what a lesson there was in it for me. He beamed when I said as much.

The memory remained with me like a conscience, giving me a dismayed feeling of “What would John think of this!” when my own lot got out of hand. But it was not altogether without fruit. Little by little, after every grand turn out, small improvements began to creep in: there would be an additional shelf, extra hooks, even partitioned trays for those elusive screws and nails and small tools (cheap wooden or plastic cutlery trays, with partitions added as desired, are handy for this when time is lacking, as it usually is over this kind of job), so that at least a certain order began to persist through the bad periods. But how it lagged behind John’s I had ruefully to admit. And then, after an interval of some years I met him again and somehow the subject cropped up. He and his wife stared at one another in blank astonishment. “John’s workshop tidy!” she cried. “Oh it can’t have been his you saw. Why, it’s always in a hopeless mess.” Firmly I recalled the time and circumstances of the vision I had seen and they both burst out laughing. It must, they said, have been the one and only time it had ever been tidy.

After that I felt much better, although the vision still leads me on, not so much now with a feeling of guilt as of an objective to be attained. Common sense says that order in one’s work surroundings is an excellent thing, time saving and making for efficiency, in its own way carrying with it an inspiration to good work. Hard fact says that in an imperfect world where time is short and the demands on it fairly heavy, it is not always possible to do things the perfect way and, as always, we have to compromise. We need to achieve a kind of order, something that will enable us to keep an eye on things in general so that nails and screws are to hand if we want them, tools are kept in good, rust-free condition an oddments of wood protected from woodworm. It is no good storing those small choice pieces over the years if, when the time comes to use them, they are riddled with woodworm, liable to spread the pest all around and fit only to be burned. One of the “mucking out” precautions is a quick lick of wood preservative over any pieces that are likely to be stored for some time, and this is the time of the year when extra vigilance is most certainly desirable. 

Everything will not get done at once, but keeping at it, little by little and bit by bit, we do more or less keep pace. The high-lighted moments when we can look round at the perfect picture as we should like to keep it are few and far between, but how good when they come. And how good that we should have them, rather than let good materials go to ruin and the good tools deteriorate which our old faithfuls and the companions of our hands. 

— Charles Hayward

Editor’s note: For the next several weeks, we will feature some of our favorite columns from “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward” years, along with a few sentences about why these particular columns hit the mark.

This column from 1937 is one of my personal favorites because of the poem:

“Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face;”

Try saying it out loud as you work (be sure no one is watching) and you can feel the rhythm of mortising or sawing flow through the syllables. Aside from that, I am deeply aligned with Hayward’s admonition that we should commit ourselves completely to something. That is what was missing from my life when I was a young journalist. For me, writing has always been important, but it doesn’t have the dizzying depth of woodworking, which involves all the senses. Hand skill. Memory. Geometry. Once I committed to woodworking, my path became clear. Or, as Hayward put it: “For we have to take in all we can and give out all we can, if we are to make a success of anything.”

Top that, Master Yoda.

— Christopher Schwarz

Honest Labour

Honest labour bears a lovely face

From time to time we come across men in their middle or old age whose faces show the stamp of an experience which has bred in them much wisdom and kindliness, setting them apart somehow from the ordinary run of men. We enjoy talking to them; their company is stimulating even when they are not very ready of speech. There is something so real and sincere about them, and their opinions are so well founded. We find them among farm workers, fishermen, cabinetmakers, cobblers, among workers of all trades just as much as among professional men, and always they have the one thing in common—hardworking lives. One of the sweetest singers among the Elizabethan poets wrote:

“Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face;”

Which perhaps puts its finger on their secret. And it is good, just now when holidays are over, to reflect a little on this matter of work.

***

Most of us have to work in order to live and, like sensible men, make the best of it. But it is only when we come across the man whom work has, as it were, seasoned like a piece of fine old wood that we begin to suspect that work may have more purpose in our lives than we give it credit for. Just as a man brings his own powers of hand and mind to bear upon the work he is doing, so does that work in turn influence him. It sets its mark upon him, in some cases even producing distinct, recognisable types—shepherd, stable boy, lawyer, doctor, we know how each can carry in face and bearing some reflection of his daily activities—but, whatever the work, it helps to mould the man. The more it demands of him, mentally or physically, the more it can do for him, toughening his fibre, strengthening his will, bringing out qualities which otherwise might have lain dormant all his life, fine qualities some of them, even rare qualities. Work can also twist and warp a man: it all depends, I think, upon our attitude towards it.

***

There are business men who optimistically placard their offices with such texts as: “There’s no fun like work,” but I would like to know how many of us believe them. Work is not fun. To call it fun is just one of those silly, superficial sayings which glance at a truth and then sheer away again. Work has its glorious moments, moments when we are working at the top of our form and thoroughly enjoying ourselves, but it also has its inevitable drudgery; the steady doing from day to day of a certain job, whether we like it or not, sometimes in the teeth of difficulty, sometimes in spite of our own inclination of the moment, simply doing it because it has to be done, as one of the necessities of existence. Herein lies its value, bracing us up in mind and body, bringing out qualities of patience and steadfastness which otherwise might be lacking. But we have tacitly to accept it and make an honest job of work if we are to reap the real good, the essential good, which is greater really than the weekly pay envelope.

***

Thomas Dekker, he wrote that “Honest labour bears a lovely face” knew what he was talking about, for he worked hard in order to live and was famous among his fellow poets and playwrights for his “right happy and copious industry.” The fact of the matter is that we are mainly unknown quantities, even to ourselves. We can only guess at our own powers. The full range and extent of them we simply do not know till ambition or necessity, through hard work, force us to develop them. Our minds and our wills are the very queerest things and need all the urge and all the stiffening they can get from the hard, unsentimental facts of existence before they will begin to show of what they are capable. Work brings a man to maturity, jostling him up against his fellow men in competition, sharpening his wits, developing his skill, whether in the handling of men or affairs or the handling of a tool, at the very least into the regular habit of industry. Work is not really the enemy which, when we are in holiday mood or suffering from illness or fatigue, it may sometimes appear. It is another of the instruments of our education to life, and often the sterner it is the more it brings out the worth of a man.

***

That is why men, who cannot from the nature of their work employ their energies as actively as they wish, are wise when they use part of their leisure in the work of their choice. We call it a hobby then, but many a man who has drifted casually into a hobby has found in it a lifework. In this, at least, he is his own master, and he may become a master in the highest sense, of a craft, of a science, or an art, if he gives himself wholeheartedly to it. That is the difficulty with most of us: we don’t give ourselves out enough. We are always holding back, making excuses when we come to the difficult bits for not being quite as thorough as we should. There is always a technique to be learnt, and pains and patience are needed to master it. Every step of the way cannot be equally interesting. When mankind tried to eliminate drudgery it invented machines, and brought boredom into the lives of the millions of men who have to do the little routine jobs in attendance on them while the machines do the real work. And boredom is worse by a long way, for it simply stifles us. Drudgery as a means to an end, and that the perfecting of a job, has to have its place, but if we really set our hearts on success we shall not grudge one moment of it.

***

So to all those of our readers who, as amateurs, are planning to carry on with their woodwork this winter, we would say: see that every job is as good and as thorough as you can make it from start to finish. Don’t stint your pains and don’t miss any opportunity, through careful study of our pages and by any other means within your power, of learning all you can about the elements of woodwork as well as about advanced processes. Any miscellaneous knowledge about timber, tools, furniture, whatever it is, that you gather by the way, will never come amiss. For we have to take in all we can and give out all we can, if we are to make a success of anything. And that applies to things far greater than woodwork; even to life itself, I think.

After four years of honest labor, I am happy to announce you can place a pre-publication order for our newest book: “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years, 1936-1966.” This massive book (474 pages) compiles Hayward’s best columns about the craft during his tenure as editor of The Woodworker magazine in the United Kingdom.

The book is $34 and can be ordered here from our store.

Hayward’s columns cover an enormous swath of woodworking philosophy, from discussions of our insecurities about our skills to the regenerative power of time at the bench. Hayward writes from a unique perspective: He was a traditionally trained woodworker, World War I veteran, professional woodworker, draughtsman, photographer, writer and editor. He steered The Woodworker through World War II (without missing an issue) and was a comforting voice for woodworkers through the most tumultuous portion of the 20th century.

We’ve taken his best columns during the 30 years he was the editor and reprinted them in “Honest Labour” for you to enjoy and think about. Each column occupies a single spread in the book – just open the book to any page and you will find a complete column. And each is illustrated with drawings from that particular year of The Woodworker – many of the drawings from Hayward’s own hand.

“Honest Labour” is the fifth and final book in The Woodworker series, which was a multi-year, multinational project to preserve the hand tool knowledge that almost disappeared in the 20th century. “Honest Labour” is the same trim size as the other Woodworker books in the series, printed on the same paper and features the same tough binding. The only difference is the cotton cover cloth. We chose a deep scarlet instead of the green to differentiate this volume from the others.

The book is currently at the printer and should ship in early May 2020. We hope our retailers will carry this book, though we have no control (obviously) over their stock choices.

In the coming weeks we’ll publish an excerpt for those of you who are on the fence or unsure this book is worth your time and effort.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. I know we have been releasing a slew of stuff this week – pinch rods, linocut prints from “Good Work” and now this book. It was completely unplanned and is what happens when you run a publishing company with the “it’s done when it’s done philosophy.” Sometimes that means you have nothing. Sometimes it means you have too much.