I.Maker.365.

(018) Shop Class As Soulcraft

In my recent post on growing up dyslexic in a public school system I started thinking about Mathew Crawford's book Shop Class as Soulcraft. I picked this book a couple of years ago when it came out. Basically it's a manifesto on making. His premise is, in a world where white collar jobs (accountants, lawyers) can be outsourced to the cheapest place on the globe, or replaced by simple accounting software (I'm looking at you Quicken), then those jobs that require you to physically go the last 10 yards represent the place with the most economic security (think plumbers and electricians).

Interestingly though, it's not just about a throw away society that needs people to fix stuff. The attitude of the craftsman is different than that of the laborer:

 

We all have the experience of dealing with a service provider who seems to have been reduced to a script-reading automaton. We have also heard the complaints of employers about not being able to find concientous workers. Are these two facts perhaps related? There seems to be a vicious circle in which degraded work plays a pedagogical role, forming workers into material that is suited for anything but the overdetermined world of careless labor.

These thoughts should inform our choices as consumers. It may not make sense to have an engine rebuilt by your local mechanic, in narrow economic terms. You may be better off buying a rebuilt engine from one of the chain auto part stores, which get them from hig-volume re-manufacturing operations down in Mexico. These factories simply ignore the finer points that engage a mechanics attention. (That's why they typically have a warranty of only 12,000 miles, or 36,000 at most.) But a more public-spirited calculus would include a humane regard for the kind of labor involved in each alternative: on the one side disciplined attentiveness, enlivened by a mechanics own judgments and ethical entanglement with a motor, and on the other systematized carelessness. Further, the decision is inherently political, because the question who benefits is at stake: the internationalist order of absentee capital, or an individual possessed of personal knowledge. Given the ever bolder raids of capital into psychic territory of labor, our consumer choices contribute to a land war, on one side or the other, whether we aware of the fact or not. This can be understood by analogy with our food choices: having a motor rebuilt would correspond roughly to the decision to buy food from a local farmer versus a distant agribusiness. This is the practice the bohemian consumer already has in the culture tool kit he uses, not only to construct his dissident self image but to give expression to his genuine public-spiritedness. If the regard that many people now have for the wider ramifications of their food choices could be brought to our relationships to our own automobiles, it would help sustain pockets of mindful labor.

Obviously not every mechanic carries a counter-cultural dagger in his boot. But the mere fact that they stand ready to fix things, a class they are an affront to the throwaway society. Just as important, the kind of thinking they do, if they are good, offers a couterweight to the culture of narcissism.

Several months back (wow, actually over a year now) I had washing machine repair guy in to fix a broken part on my machine that won't allow it to spin properly. The repair guy said, "it's a lot of work to replace that part and it's expensive. For the same price, with my labor, you might be able to by another washer. I wouldn't fix this one"

I think I can find the parts manual on-line. I know the part that is broken. If I can get the part, I will repair that machine myself. Cause economics aside, all of the other working parts of that washer are hardly ready for a land-fill

(017) testimonies on making: Jim Cappilletti

I met Jim in when I was in graduate school in Ohio. We both moved to New York about the same time. It's been a few years since I've seen him in person, but I love his eagerness to testify.

Keep them coming!

I wanted to share a little bit about my "making".  More like "doing" as I don't really make these things.  I remake them.  I redo them.  I make them look good?

Anyway, I've been following your blog.  Love it! 

About a year ago, I found a small cabinet on the street and I decided to strip it down and give it a new life/look.  Something about it was quite addictive.  It was kind of old and piss colored.  It now sits in my living room looking a little shabby shic and a little distressed (in a good way).

 

Since then, I've done 3 coffee tables, 2 chairs and I'm currently working on 1 more coffee table and 1 more chair for friends. I simply love doing it and I can't really say why.  It's just really satisfying!  Gives me great pleasure to take an old piece that's a little run down and out of shape and make it look great.  At least they look great to me.  I'm not a pro but I do think I have a natural talent for it. Most of the pieces I've redone are found or bought on craigslist for next to nothing.  I learn from experimenting, reading and youtube.  The cabinet ended up having three different kinds of stain color with some coffee and smoked paprika!  Having an outdoor space helps greatly and now that it's getting cold I'm having trouble getting in my work due to the cold weather. 

Love this blog, keep up the good work. I enjoy reading about the things you make.  I want to try that goose you made for Thanksgiving.  I've always wanted to try making a goose.  Don't get me started on cooking...if there's one thing I love to do, it's cook!   Cooking is the pure expression of love and life!

(016) testify on making

Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend we hosted a pie party. The idea was bring your favorite pie, or bring whatever left-over pie you want gone. My friend Alex showed up with a tasty homemade chess pie. I hadn't seen him in a while and he asked what I'd been doing lately.

I told him, amongst other things, I had recently started writing a blog about making. He asked why he hadn't heard about it. The answer was quite simple. Having developed user generated and social strategies for getting the word out for the better part of 10 years now, I keep reminding myself, there has to be a there there first.

Eight posts does not make a blog on making, fifteen simply states that I have been able to stick with it for two whole weeks! Needless to say my aim was to get some variety and girth behind this project before tooting my horn too loudly.

One of the things I've wanted to do since the start is share not only what I've been doing, but what others have done too. To that end I am looking for a few folks that want to testify on making. I've approached a couple of ringers to get started on a various topics. But I wanted to offer you, the hand-full of casual readers, an opportunity too.

What's your passion? Cooking, knitting, auto restoration, beer making, Rasberry Pi, wood-working, welding; what gets you going, and what is it that keeps you there?

Testify on the art and love of making. Help me breathe more community into these posts.

Drop me an email, let me know what you're making, we would love to hear from you.

(015) the maker dyslexic

When you grow up highly dyslexic and highly <cough> intelligent, you learn quickly where written words and numbers are going to fail you. You learn tricks, you know when to recruit helpers. You start mastering these techniques as soon as you start school. Back then there were no special classes for smart people. My main objective from grade school on was “don’t get grouped with the stupid kids”. Even then I somehow inherently knew that I would learn more by cheating my way through with bright kids than I would ever learn being bored by remedial work that was not addressing my issue.

By senior year of high school I was pretty good at making the system work for me. A full day, every period filled with crazy mix mash of classes that, made me seen like a renaissance man to my councilor (he went as far to mention it). Little did he know it was an elaborately thought out plan for how to avoid letting everyone know how severe my learning disability really was.

 For instance, instead of English, I had speech and public speaking. Counted as an English credit, but I didn’t have to read any long literature. I sought out the Poli/Sci teacher who liked oral presentation as well. The less writing and more performing, the less likely I was to fail.

Math through algebra 2 was the only requirement to graduate at the time. I did that over prior summer so I would only have one thing to focus on and possibly pass everything my senior year.

Physics, this one took some work. I wanted to be in the honors section cause I knew I could learn from the dynamic and metaphor using honors physics teacher better than the one that liked to stick to the dry numbers. I got a C in Chemistry the prior year and needed at least a B to qualify.  The honors class was only taught one period a day. By throwing in marching band and welding I was able to charm them into a scheme of letting me qualify, as it was “the only time physics would work in my eclectic schedule”. Once in the class I did well, any elaborate equations one of my friends checked before handing in the work, my plan succeeded.

Anatomy, one of two courses I got an A in my senior year (welding was the other, but that's a story for another post). Why? Easy, it was like learning a map; it was all pictures. But there was one other thing that happened in that class that makes it note worthy.

 We had to dissect fetal pigs, when I say we I had a lab partner. Wicked smart with the books, not so nimble with the fingers. In addition to being able to name all the parts as we got to them, we were also graded on the neatness of our dissection (looking back a rather odd requirement for anatomy, but that was a long time ago). At some point over the many week project my lab partner severed a number of large arteries accidentally. This one ape-ish spasm was endangering one of the few A’s I might ever earn legitimately.

 I snuck the fetal pig out of school. I took it home and performed surgery. With fishing line and a sewing needle I was able to repair the damaged parts. The next day, I was back in class for the day’s dissection review. The teacher came by, looked and looked, asked few questions and then moved on.

After class he asked me to stay. He was very direct, “I know what happened with your pig, I know your lab partner had an accident. I was ready to penalize you for trying to hide that from me. But when I saw how well you reconstructed it I decided to give you a pass. Nice work. Have you considered a career in surgery?”

In 12 years of school, I think that was the only time a legitimate academic class ever rewarded me for craftsmanship.

 

 

(014) tools in reno

Since 2009 I have been a part of a collective of folks that produce a theme camp for Burning Man that goes by the name Things That Swing. The event is held in the high dessert a couple of hours outside of Reno NV. It takes place in the week leading up to Labor Day each year.

For the past two years we've stored most of the camp components in a storage facility in Reno. After shipping for a couple of years we decided it was cheaper just to leave that stuff out there. This year we erred on the side of leaving even more stuff there than usual. That included, I have determined since September, a number of useful tools that have found more stress free and climate winter accommodations.

Since starting to write this blog, aka really focusing making, I've noticed about a half dozen things that, "gee, I really could use that ______ about now". Today was no exception. I needed a hot glue gun. As a rule, the hot glue gun is a tool that I tend to avoid. Smacking too much of half-baked, ill-fitted craft, it has its cliché, but occasionally it is the janky tool of choice.

So joining the ranks of bi-coastal tool duplication is the hot glue gun. Long may its steamy adhesives flow.

(013) fibonacci filler

I strated knitting another fabonacci sequence into a scarf last night and it reminded me of this super cute (said with your best sorority sister inflection) video that Kirsten forwarded to me sometime this week.

Not only do I like the simplicity of the explanation ,I love the time lapse hand-made style.

Super cute.

 

(012) cooking goose

I mentioned several blog posts back that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. This one was no exception. Many thing made, but the makery bit I wanted talk about today though is cooking goose.

Many years ago Michael and I got off turkey at Thanksgiving. Mainly because neither of us cares for white meat, and over-cooked white turkey meat is the worst culprit of all. I assume that people cook it within an inch of its life so they can use gravy to mask and enhance what little powdery flavor it would normally have.

We've done pheasants, quail, venison, pork loins, just about anything we could to avoid turkey. On a couple of occasions we have done goose. I think this my third or forth outing. Here's the things with cooking large game birds, they're sort of like  shishkabobs, it would be neat if  the legs, thighs, breast cooked at the same temperature for the same length for a dazzling display when you pull it off the grill. But sadly what you usually get is an passably cooked piece of lamb, a raw onion and burnt and runny tomato. How I solved for the kabob problem in the past was speciating squares so everything has a chance to cook in its own time and then mix the results on the plate.

Same Idea with the goose. Huge dark meat breast (think about all that flying they do) with a really fatty duck like layer of skin. It's the cooking away the fat without over cooking the meat into leathery red strips that is the challenge, combined with the fact that the legs and thighs take longer to get to temperture than the breast.

Here's what I did. I roasted the 18ish pound goose for about 45 minutes at a lower temperature, then at about 130F it came out of the oven. Using a boning knife I then removed the entire breast, and set the two halves aside. I put the bird back in the oven until deep in the hip joint got to about 140F. Then the entire bird came out of the oven to rest and cool before cutting.

I removed the legs and thigh and misc. other bits from the carcass and put it the with breasts that had been set aside earlier. The thing about the goose meat was it was still a little underdone with a respectable amount of bacon like fat left in the skin.

The final prep phase was pan-searing the skin just before serving. I put about half an inch of molten goose fat in a cast iron skilet and at high temperature pan fried all of the pieces skin down to get lovely brown color with just the right amount of crispiness. It was then arranged on a patter and served. Still a little fatty, but the meat was almost perfect. It may have not ben the soviet display of bird some want for the holiday, but the meat was worth the effort.

On a side note some of you who know me better might be asking right about now, "wait a second I thought you were vegan?" And the answer is, for the most part I am, normally when we cook at home there's not a lot of animal product of any kind. The reason I am vegan is for health and resource issus, and less animal rights. Eating to much animal product was going to put in in an early grave, plus if everyone ate just a couple more meat free days a week the resource use that fuels industrial agriculture would feel the significant decrease.

But when it come to celebrations I like to be more traditional. Besides saving up for big meat extravaganzas makes them seem all more tastey when that day finally arrives.

(011) unfinished projects

In preparation for Thanksgiving week family/pie festivities the white board in the kitchen is teaming with lists of things that need to be procured, prepared, cleaned, and my favorite category, finished. And when I say finished I mean waaay over due to be finished

The counter-tops in our kitchens are made of Paperstone. We had them installed for about five years now and I love it. Hard, durable, looks like stone, think lab tables. There are two small counters on either side of the stove, a long counter with a sink, and a matching length counter as an island.

We attached the paperstone tops directly to the 3/4" ply carcasses we built. We had large shop-like drawers made, two drawers in each unit, 12 in all. The drawers we designed to have sliding trays inside, but this brings me to the point of today's post. Unfinished projects.

When we were working on the house we refereed to it as being "functionally done". Meaning, it does everything you want it to, there are simply some finishing details that never quite made it off the list.

One of the counters in our kitchen was a perfect example. The piece of paperstone that made the island counter-top was never attached. If you live here you get used to knowing not to lean on it as it will slide. Guests always got a litle surprise.

This week in the flurry of Thanksgiving prep we fianlly did something about it. By drilling and placing four pegs on the underside of counter top that aligned to the four corners of the cabinet carcass we were able to "pin" it in place. Worked like a charm. I used a little duct tape to beef up the pegs and snug the fit, a little shout out to my burner friends perhaps.

 

 

(010) portable table saws

To get a better understanding of using shop-tools at my place you have to understand how the house is laid out. The first floor has the dining room, bathroom, kitchen, followed by back yard/patio (it's fully cemented). the remainder of the house is two additional rooms, the living room and the studio/sleeping area stacked neatly over the dining and bath room. It's a lot of room for New York, it's a tiny house with far too many stairs between things by comparable standards.

The house is especially tiny when you consider it contains a full wood and costume shop packed into it. We also have a basement. Interestingly, it is the largest room in the house, it is the full footprint of the house. It is stuffed to the gills with tools and maker bits.

The trick is, all of the tools get used outside on the slab behind the house. That means anytime you want to use the tools, you assemble everything you need, haul it up through the house, out to the back yard, work all day, and then pack it all up at the end of the day, and do the reverse.

Because of all of this back and forth we never invested in a table saw. I had always thought that any saw that could be moved that easily was probably no more accurate than a rotary saw. I had grown up around huge cast iron shop monsters that you could pus 4x8 panels through with room to spare.We cut a lot of the cabinetry in this house using a circular saw and carfully placed guides.

Over the summer our friend Jeff wanted to make some custom-sized dressers for his apartment in Manhattan, a job made  much easier with a table saw and fence. This coincided with us deciding finally make a tool locker in the back yard and empty the basement while removing the dreaded tool schlep every time you need to use them. 

One thing led to another and we ended up with this DeWalt Job Site Table saw. Although we were still getting a portable table saw, somehow not having to move it so much seemed appealing? I was still a little skeptical.  Jeff and Micahel used it out of the box and seemed to like it. I didn't try it until I was helping Michael rip a 45 across huge piece of IKEA butcher block counter last week.

We installed the extender arms before starting, something I expected to be rickety at best, but they were fine. Since we were cutting it on the diagonal there was no way to set up a fence to steady against, nor were the angle adjustable push sticks long enough to reach under the width of the plank. After much deliberation we decided to free cut it to a line we had scribed. It work amazingly. Skeptic no more. 

The cut was so much easier than anything I could have done with a rotary saw. While it may not be the cast iron monster of my fantasies, I do think there is a place for it in our collection.

 

(009) Arduino day with Kip

Ever since starting to try and figure out Arduino it's been a solo activity. It was something I poked at quietly for hours, presenting the results to Michael or Kirsten and getting an almost encouraging, "wow, that's great, it blinks."

In an effort to find someone who would appreciate that it was more than plugging in lights that made it work I sought out my friend Kip. He's been working intermittently with this stuff for a few years now and has enough of a head-start to have a lot he could teach me.

Going back to the, "that's great it blinks" phenomena, is where I think my aattention is being drawn. My biggest complaint with many of the Arduino projects I see is, they're more about how to get the circuits and code to work over what they're actually making. Same general observation for glass blowers, the technique takes so much effort to master and perfect, that often less aattention is paid to actual design. My ultimate goal for success with Arduino will be, "wow, I've never seen it used that way before"

A few observations on our bromance play date:

• I think he has far more talents than his gee-gosh humbleness allows. 
• Not soldering for 20 years; it's not like riding a bike. Wow was I surprised. I'm considering getting some simple (who wants a dork watch for christmas?) soldering kit from Adafruit or Sparkfun just to get some skilz back.
• We work well together. we knew we pontificated and drank well together already. The yin/yang of what are we making?/how does it work? seemed to play out well.

We were desigining a sign for his girlfriend's daughter's birthday.  He had a few yards of these RGB strip lights. They're pretty cool, I think the more we played with them the better they got. 

 

The code we copied to get them up and running had 4 or 5 sample sequences. Each sequence in succession automatically reminded me of gay pride christmas, or deli sign on steroids. Mainly because of the roygbiv-ness of the color palette and the parade like displays. But after we worked with them a bit, and I'm told he refined it even more after I left, they were starting to become less of a rainbow extravaganza and more a subtle color thing,

I'm pretty sure the 8 year old will not be tracking down this post (due to utter in-interest not ineptitude), so I will speak freely about the surprise. We're planning to make a sign of here name in el panels built into a translucent  light box with  the led strips in a separate diffused layer. Like all of the these component projects, no single piece costs that much, but once you get the whole thing spec'ed out it can get pricey.

More details once we get started on it. We've got a couple of weeks before it's suppoed to be done. Upshot was, I think it took getting together with Kip before either of us would to start something from scrtach, I'm glad we did. details to come.