Reply To: Chris Schwarz VS Paul Sellers
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[quote quote=9081] And while I can’t take classes, I feel like I’ve bought every woodworking DVD produced in the last 20 years – Sellers, Charlesworth, Cosman, Schwartz, Tom Law, Kingshott, Klausz, etc. [/quote]
Very nicely described. My experience is somewhat like yours. I’ve watched many DVDs and some changed things for me completely. As you said, Charlesworth’s stuff can be watched, copied, and made to work and it got me going when I was stuck on sharpening with no one to show me. His methods still give me the sharpest edges, but man oh man the price you have to pay in time to get there! Paul’s is so much faster. Schwarz’ changed things because he was the first person to tell me I was an idiot. Well said and true! He pointed out that sometimes you cut to get in the ballpark of your goal, sometimes to get closer, and sometimes with great precision and they are a progression to get you to the end. For example, you rip to get close, then use the plane to refine it. That’s where I learned to put a 9″ camber on a #5 blade and use it to hog off wood like Paul shows in one of his videos. Wood flies everywhere. It’s great fun. Maybe some day I’ll be able to control the fun to land at my dimension lines. He taught me that planes aren’t always meant for fluffy shavings and sawing exactly to the line isn’t always the goal but sometimes just to pave the way for refining later.
I wish there were some Tage Frid videos just because I’d have liked to see him work. His books are very detailed and clear. He wrote one of my favorite woodworking lines (paraphrasing): “This joint is very easy to make, especially after you screw it up a dozen times.”
But, of all of these series, Paul’s is the only one that is a curriculum for working wood.