Round up from the past week.

     I have been looking at the stats and see that the video from woodworkingformeremortals.com is popular this week.  The question of learning a trade and building skills as a craftsman is one that educators have struggled with since the end of the WWII in Ontario.  
  
    The teachers and society at large made one very large mistake in my opinion.  We/they under estimated the intellectual demands of being a skilled craftsman.  For too long the trades were viewed as a place where people that were no good at "book learning" ended up.  Trades were the place you ended up, you did not choose them, they were always plan 'B' or 'C'.  Plan 'A' was an office, a tie and a desk with paper flowing across it.
  
    After playing with tools for many years and meeting other people that play with tools it is clear that skilled craftsmen are in short supply and worth of out respect.

    Yesterday a book arrived from the United States called Shellac, Linseed Oil and Paint, traditional 19th Century Woodwork Finishes by Stephen A. Shepherd.  He is a craftsman, artist and author, having written several books on wood finishing. ( he also appear half chemist, half mad scientist)  Whatever he is I am glad that he is not in an office wearing a tie looking at wood fiber flowing across his desk.  M. Shepherd also writes an excellent and informative blog 
www.fullchisel.com/blog

   I recommend you look in on it as an excellent source of information on wood finishing.

The next thing to do is to read his book and let you know the details.

 

the fine print:

I received no compensation from Mr. Shepherd in anyway.  I bought the book myself because I was impressed by the content of his blog and hoped to learn more new things.