Sometimes an idea acts as an insert, a wedge, a pressure point such as the discussion of which tools to buy first. What’s best for you in your shop and what’s right for me in mine? There is of course no right answer. But it does force out the opinions does it not? Like those rock splitting wedges where you just add water.  It’s a fascination to me that we can do so much with so little sometimes. And some days so little with so much.

This blog idea, first worked over on the FWW website, intrigues me so I’d like to expand upon it a bit.

I remember being a young impressionable woodworker and being completely flummoxed by my little 6″ jointer. How did this chunk of evil cantankerous cast iron really work? Why did it perform well some days and on other days was my sworn enemy, my rival, the fixed point of my struggle, the pole star of my frustration? It could not joint a square and flat edge to save its thin metal life.

Melted into something useful like a tractor seat or a plowshare, I might regain my respect for this chunk of casting. But as a tool it was a taunt, a threat to my standing as a worker. My sense of worth was clearly threatened by this heavy burdensome beast which spoke not a word of help to me. It was dumb and I was dimwitted. Why did the woodworking gods give me this rock to drag up hill? Perhaps you can sense the frustration.

It turns out that every job we attempt in the shop is a challenge to our self. Failing this task or bungling that one and we can walk away feeling ourselves to be a miserable failure that day. No, don’t tell me your head is held high the day you screw up a glue up! It hurts to be wrong on some days. Give me the triumphs every day in the shop I pray. You can have your lessons.

There is also something about learning new skills, trying out a new hobby, experiencing the joys of a fresh endeavor that is exhilarating. But it can be accompanied by the teeth grinding frustration of not understanding quickly enough for your patience level. Or not having your body, your fingers, your hands, understand how to hold themselves, how to make the tool work like you’ve seen it done so easily before.
You are not a stupid person. You hold degrees or a long position of respect and yet when you walk into the woodshop, the tools show no respect for you at all. The project collapses before you, the tools do their own bidding and not yours.

And yet, our failures, these lessons are what trains us. I hate this. But it is true. This is what teaches us to be better at this woodworking. This is what trains us to be better at holding our heads high. Failure. The wedge driven into our work and separating us from a smooth success. It is this failure that teaches us far more than our triumphs. For if we embrace these minor bumps in the road or those major sinkholes in our journey towards completion, if we back up, stare them square in the face and understand them, then we can move forward with, if not giddy aplomb, then with at least crossed finger confidence that, this time!, we will succeed.

Failure is the key then to success. We learn more from our mistakes than our triumphs. Read your Henry Petroski about failure and engineering. Read Success Through Failure, read The Evolution of Useful Things. He understands this. Read your Chris Pye about design, The Nature and Aesthetics of Design. He knows this as well. Form follows failure and our skill in the shop, sadly the writer sighs, benefits more from the wedge of failure than the glue of success. Yikes, now I’m using woodworking metaphors.

Know this too. Now I walk by my jointer and I barely have to tune it to use it because I understand its limitations and also some of my own. It’s mystery, a warped fence casting, is now revealed and now avoided. So simple and it usually is. Just step back a bit, let the failure go and let understanding come to you. It will remove the wedge.