I’ll never forget that saying, “No pain, no gain.” As I hear someone saying that, I immediately think of Arnold Schwarzenneger yelling at someone lifting weights at Gold’s Gym. There’s no progress without feeling the pains of the process, moments of failure and doubt, but in the end, triumph and success.
The cedar boxes were a longtime coming, after three trial boxes. I had done some form of woodworking prior, making a mantle clock. This was a project with my fiancee’s dad, a small project indeed, but one that required different sets of skills. Making window boxes was my first attempt to do woodworking on my own. There was so much excitement at the beginning, but as I struggled to get the right cut or wood flush with each other, I began to doubt my ability to finish this project.
One of the things I’m learning about woodworking is that learning to build a box is an essential building block. If one masters the steps in building a box, one can essentially build anything out of wood. I found a plan to build window flower boxes from Pinterest, which required cedar wood, for its exceptional resistance to outside weather. Before stumbling upon those plans, I tried pressure treated wood, which also holds up outdoors, but is a much heavier wood to use.
Running my hands on the cedar was like feeling the softness of pond stone or the skin of a baby. It was remarkable to experience the lightness and softness of the cedar wood, contrary to what I anticipated given the hardiness of the cedar. When I began making cuts and screwing pieces together, keeping the wood from splitting was a labor of love. This gave me a deeper understanding of the importance of delicate hands, patience and prudence.
When it comes to building things, there is a temptation to want to hurry to put everything together and say that you’ve built something. Looking at the final product again, one notices the flaws that could have been prevented if the time was taken to follow the necessary steps to ensure a good build. Come think of it, this mindset really caters to the instant gratification culture that we find ourselves in. We want results and we will find the means to get them quickly.
American journalist, Hunter J. Thompson, once said, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.” These words ring true not only for woodworking, but for learning something that one is passionate about. They say that it takes over 10,000 hours to master something. While that is something to shoot for, I’d say anything worthwhile is worth doing over the course of a lifetime.
Feeling the grain is about getting your hands immersed in the moment, to feel the softness and fragility of experience and allowing your hands to shape those memories into milestones. One thing that I’ve learned in finishing these boxes is that there is a right way to doing things, a way that involves trial and error, dedication to the process and an openness to learning, which will result in something beautiful in the end.
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