I work with wood for a living. I have a shop full of sharp things. After doing it for decades I cannot wait to turn that saw, joiner, plane, drill press, lathe, or sander off at the end of the day. As a hobby I imagine woodworking could be an enjoyable, diverting pastime. As a profession it is just work. Red oak, white oak, maple, walnut, pine, ash, poplar, hickory... I used to enjoy the smell of a fresh-cut piece of wood. I do not notice it anymore, I am too used to it. Bubinga, padauk, amaranth, mahogany, bloodwood, ebony... I used to spend hours finding just the right grain pattern and complimentary color in a tropical hardwood. Now the tropical hardwoods just seem to make my hands swell up.
And I'll tell you- few people care about joinery anymore. Handcraft is a curiosity these days, an oddity to be presented at festivals and fairs.
I guess I am jaded.
My father was a woodworker (different aspect than my profession). It seemed that he would come home from work every day bleeding from some cut or scrape. As young children my brothers and I would carry on about his shredded hands, yet he never seemed to notice the cuts and bruises ("That's not a cut," he would say, "that's just a scratch.")
You could read the road map of my father's life from the scars on the backs of his hands.
One evening as I was slowly peeling the electrician’s tape off (electrician's tape makes a fine bandage) I realized that I had my father's hands. A slight miscalculation with a router had removed the flesh from the tip of one of my fingers. My sons were grossed out, yet fascinated, as young boys tend to be. "Doesn't it hurt?" "Wait'll mom sees that!" they said.
"It's just a scratch," I said.
On walking sticks-
I make staves. Anyone know what a Scout stave is? My staves are multi-tools for hikers.
A current project is a stave from a 60-year-old Osage Orange ("hedge,"
Maclura pomifera) corner post. Remember the cartoon where the entire tree would go into one side of a machine and a toothpick or bowling pin would come out of the other side? Same principle.
And one more thing-
Originally posted by vorticon
woods for weenies...real men use metal 
a "weenie?"
vorticon, as a 15 year-old boy what exactly would you know about metalwork, woodwork,
or being a real man? Did you make an ashtray in shop class or something?
You remind me of the child who desperately wants to sit with the adults during a holiday dinner with the relatives. You know the type, the yammering brat that wants to sit on mommy or daddy's lap? Good thing for you (as a non-subscribing H2H player) that HTC has a pretty big lap.
I understand that this BBS is the most important thing in your life right now, and I am not trying to destroy your credibility.
I am just making sure everyone knows that you have no credibility at all.
