Man or Wood

[Woodenskye (Bryan)]

Thread transferred from previous forum - Original Post by Coop

Original Post:

Another discussion got me to thinking, what makes a project a great project, the woodworker or the wood? Would you guys be willing to stick your neck out and give each a percentage? 

Follow Up Posts:

1)  I will..  90% woodworker 10%wood
The woodworker makes the best use of the wood available.

2)  I would probably say 95% woodworker 5% wood.

3)  "The woodworker makes the best use of the wood available."

This is my thinking, but I would have the woodworker at 100%.  The wood has nothing to do with the project until the woodworker goes to the lumber yard and picks it out.  I stick myself out there as an example.  About a year ago I built a Art and Craft sideboard for our dining area.  I let myself get caught up in a flurry of online and forum projects being done in Cherry so I followed suit.  I have some regrets about wood choice, i wish I had stuck with my original thinking of quarter sawn white oak and fuming as part of the finish process.  I give myself an A- on workmanship and a C on wood selection and maybe it should be a D.   I have seen to many instances where the woodworker trys to make the wood do everything.  Too much crotch, too much of a contrast between species, Too many species, and on and on.

Even if you have no choice in the wood, someone just points you at a type of wood and say build such and such using that.  It is still part of the process to select your parts out of the wood, grain selection, avoiding flaws and damage, to make the piece look as good as possible.  

No matter what you do none of it is the woods responsibility, woodworker 100%  

4)  Chet, I agree and that’s the reason I said “makes a project a great project” . I’ve seen very well built projects that just incorporated the wrong woods (grain, figure, etc) that made me think “holy crap”, what was he thinking. And I confess to having done just that. Kind of like a pink Range Rover. And after having said that, I think I just painted myself into a corner as choosing the right wood falls back on the shoulders of the woodworker. Going in with the question, my opinion was ww- 80%, wood - 20%. But now I’m leaning more in y’alls direction.

5)  NOPE YOUR ALL WRONG. . .

50 / 50

50% to me and 50% to the wood.

Its like the chicken or the egg.

Can't have one without the other.

So one of you said it ain't the wood at all....ok so imagine this.

Hey guys I did this awesome project the other day. . .spent hours in the shed, did a lot of this and a lot of that and when i was finished it was freakin awesome. Didn't make a thing though because I had no wood. I was just imagining what I could have done if I'd had wood. The wood gave me the cold shoulder because I wasn't appreciating it enough.

On the other hand there's nice wood to work with and then there's bastard wood to work with.

 

PS and all that. . .Its good to see that I have managed to rub off on you all. "IT'S NOT TIMBRE ITS WOOD."

Because we all know that TIMBRE is what you all scream when the tree finally falls over.