On Skills

I had a call from a friend the other day. He's getting geared up to build a Pathfinder.  It's his first boatbuilding project and he's all worried! "John, do you think I have the skills to do this?"

Someone has been feeding him "you're not good enough" pills. By his perception boats are objects to be revered, a bit like books to a Librarian or cameras to a photographer. To create such sacred things requires a builder who has amazing skills, special training and tools, hands like precision machine tools and eyes that take in the whole sweep of the horizon in one glance. For a mere mortal to aspire to such heights is sacrilege, and this is a guy who has supervised the building of huge factories!!!! Someone has really done a number on him!

First thing to remember is that building a boat, even a really big one, is only a matter of one job at a time. A bit like the man leaning on his shovel who when asked, "how are you going to move that mountain?" Replied, "one shovelful at a time!"

No job is big in itself, if it is a big job, then apply the teaspoon theory to it. ( I can hear the puzzlement from here, if you can't handle a shovel then try a spade, if that's too much use a spoon, or a teaspoon!) Every job can be broken down until the immediate task is within your grasp. The skill factor is in recognizing the method of breaking the job down and prioritizing the order of the jobs.

Now that's not too hard. You have to start somewhere and if the plans have not got a building guide that outlines the sequence of events then pick on a small item that can be built and laid aside. Then do another, and another.

So how about the actual skills, well, it helps if you can read. It helps if you can visualise the finished product when looking at a drawing although this is something that will come with time ( until then, trust the designer, if he can't do that then you're both in trouble) . I like my clients to be able to measure with a rule, draw a straight line, count, cut to a line and sharpen tools. I like them to be able to plane a piece of wood smooth, although I am quite happy for them to go away and practice. Its nice if they can drill a hole where needed, put a screw in and drive a nail straight more often than not. I bend my share over, and with ringbarbed boatnails this can mean it needs to be broken off and punched down below the surface so as not to gap your plane when you are smoothing the surface off. Better to get them right.

Power tools. Experience helps, but for everybody there is a first time. Experience starts when you begin! Or as I like to remind people, "An expert is a beginner with experience". If you've never used say, a power plane before, get it out of the box that it came in, DONT PLUG IT IN YET!!!!!!. It bites!

Read the handbook. Have a good look at it, see the flat surface on which it slides along the work , look at those little knives on that wee drum shaped holder, and imagine them screaming around wanting to chew on anything within range! Hold it by the handles so that your fingers are well clear of those blades and slide it along the edge of a piece of wood, making sure that the wood is securely clamped first. You are well on the way to learning a new skill, you know what part of the machine is dangerous, you know how to hold it safely and you are very close to using it for the first time. Not hard now was it?

Hand tools are not quite as easy to learn but much less likely to bite you, and much the same applies. Pick up your Stanley no 4 smoothing plane that you coerced the family into buying you for your birthday and take it, and the book on sharpening and setting woodworking tools off to your workspace and sit down in the thinking chair ( every workshop needs a comfortable place to sit and think) . Look it over, get the grand uncle or whoever in the family knows about these things to come and show you, and set up a piece of nice even grained wood clamped in a vice or to the bench, and plane a few shavings off. Practice, practice planing down to a mark, straight, a rounded curve, a rounded edge. Practice.

Don't the shavings look nice! You made those! A skill you didn't have a few minutes before!

Skills. they're deceptive things, some of those who have them need to feel important so make their skills sound wonderfully complex, but even a complex skill is just a series of simple jobs and it is a rare one that Joe average cannot teach himself with help, patience and application.

I'd suggest that an enquiring mind is an essential skill, given some curiosity as to how things work. With a willingness to ask what may sound like a silly question, some application and determination most people can learn pretty well any skill.