Only the Essential
Saturday 4th November 2023
Dear Friends,
Tools are so confusing.
When I was first starting out, I was at a complete loss as to what to buy.
The toolmonger wanted to sell me so many tools that it was overwhelming. I mean - how many different bench planes, block planes, shoulder planes, scraper planes and moulding planes does a maker actually need?
And that’s just planes!
Looking at established makers wasn’t that useful to this aspiring woodworker, either.
Their workshops were full of hundreds of tools. Tools that had been collected over the course of a career for specific jobs, handed to them as heirlooms, or just gathered for the love of tool collecting.
Now, don’t get me wrong,
Tools are lovely things to collect.
But as an aspiring maker, that was not really what I was after.
Things changed when I found some guidance.
Firstly, there was the philosophy of my mentor, David Savage. His approach was ultra minimalist. “Gather as few tools around you as possible, but make sure that each one of them is as good as it can be.”
Secondly, I added to this philosophy by devouring ‘essential’ tool lists, from those who wrote about the craft.
I would eagerly look in the appendices of books from all different woodworkers to see what was on their “essential list”. I poured over books by Alan Peters, David Charlesworth, James Krenov and many others.
In addition to this, I was doing one important thing: I was actually being a maker.
In the furniture I made for myself, for Rowden, and for others, I found David’s words to ring true. You can go very far with very little.
But the tools you do include have to be perfect.
Perfectly chosen
Perfectly sharpened
Perfectly honed
Perfectly set up to take the finest shavings; to cut through the timber like a knife through hard cheese.
But once this happens, an incredible shift happens in your woodwork:
You stop struggling with your tools.
Time disappears as you stand at the bench.
You begin to flow with your work.
And while results don’t come quickly (no worthy pursuit ever does), working wood by hand becomes a refreshing joy. The wonderful escape that you always hoped it would be.
I have so much more to say on the perfect toolkit, but I’ll save it for another email.
Until next time, stay sharp friends
~sh