Allen Grimes
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- 146
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Its funny when I think back about 6 or 7 years ago, not only did I not know anything about fine furniture, but I also hated the way wood looked. Now I study every piece of furniture I see just to see if I can get any useful ideas from it and I am constantly amazed at the true beauty of wood.
The thing is, I would never have gotten involved with woodworking at all if some furniture store didn't try to rip me off a few years ago. I went in looking for some kitchen cabinets and they gave me a good price only to double it right before I gave made the purchase. Obviously, I told the lady what I thought of her sneakiness before leaving the store, never to return. After that I decided, that I would buy a couple tools and build the cabinets myself, but just put it off and went without them a little while longer.
A few months later, my wife (girlfriend at the time) decided that she was tired of waiting for me to build her her kitchen cabinets so she took it upon herself to enroll me in a woodworking class so I could at least learn how to build them.
So I started going to the class, which was taught by the worst WW teacher known to man kind, but still I learned two very important things from him. 1 to appreciate wood and good craftsmanship and 2 you can hand plane all the way through a 2 inch board without ever achieving flatness if you don't have a properly tuned blade.
Anyway, it was then that I decided that I wanted to be a professional woodworker, but since my skill progression was going so slow, I was starting to lose hope until I went to the SMC and saw some of Shelly Bolster's work. The reason being, that when I saw her work the first thing that came to my mind was, "if that little old lady can build nice furniture, then so can I". Not to insult her, but that is honestly what I thought, and why I stuck with it.
Now I am still not as good as I want to be, but I have both the desire and confidence that I need to keep going, mostly due to the online WW community though, so I thought this post was relevant. If it wasn't for WW forums, who knows what boring and unrewarding job I'd be doing right now.
Sorry that this was so long, but if you bothered to read it all then thank you, and I'd love to hear your stories.(whether you've read it all or not)
Btw, I never did make those kitchen cabinets.
The thing is, I would never have gotten involved with woodworking at all if some furniture store didn't try to rip me off a few years ago. I went in looking for some kitchen cabinets and they gave me a good price only to double it right before I gave made the purchase. Obviously, I told the lady what I thought of her sneakiness before leaving the store, never to return. After that I decided, that I would buy a couple tools and build the cabinets myself, but just put it off and went without them a little while longer.
A few months later, my wife (girlfriend at the time) decided that she was tired of waiting for me to build her her kitchen cabinets so she took it upon herself to enroll me in a woodworking class so I could at least learn how to build them.
So I started going to the class, which was taught by the worst WW teacher known to man kind, but still I learned two very important things from him. 1 to appreciate wood and good craftsmanship and 2 you can hand plane all the way through a 2 inch board without ever achieving flatness if you don't have a properly tuned blade.
Anyway, it was then that I decided that I wanted to be a professional woodworker, but since my skill progression was going so slow, I was starting to lose hope until I went to the SMC and saw some of Shelly Bolster's work. The reason being, that when I saw her work the first thing that came to my mind was, "if that little old lady can build nice furniture, then so can I". Not to insult her, but that is honestly what I thought, and why I stuck with it.
Now I am still not as good as I want to be, but I have both the desire and confidence that I need to keep going, mostly due to the online WW community though, so I thought this post was relevant. If it wasn't for WW forums, who knows what boring and unrewarding job I'd be doing right now.
Sorry that this was so long, but if you bothered to read it all then thank you, and I'd love to hear your stories.(whether you've read it all or not)
Btw, I never did make those kitchen cabinets.