Page 2 of 15 FirstFirst 12345612 ... LastLast
Results 16 to 30 of 213

Thread: Paul Sellers

  1. #16
    I have learned a ton from him. The detailed way he discusses subjects and processes is perfect for me. I simply wish he could find the return key- I find myself copying and pasting some of his blogs into Word and breaking them into reasonable paragraphs before I read them.

  2. #17
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    Ekenäs, Finland
    Posts
    187
    This thread is turning out to be a good one, quite opposite to what I expected. I have to admit that I have a general dislike for threads like 'do you like Sellers', 'what do you think of the Schwarz' or what do we think of Rob Cosman and other gurus. I dislike the facts that it tends to get personal about people who are not there to defend themselves.
    My motto is that I don't have to like everything and therefore I try to tolerate as much as possible even when I actually dislike it.
    Getting to the point it is clear that Sellers divides people just like any other high profile person in woodworking or other occupations.
    I will admit that I generally and truly like Sellers because he takes the time to thoroughly explain what he is doing and why it is important. This is something very few other do.
    We who spend a lot of our time at SMC are about as different as we are many. Which means that we have different mindsets, skills, preferred methods and that we learn stuff different ways.
    I correspond with maybe a handful woodworkers in my country. Two of them have visited my shop and during those times we discussed hand tools more than woodworking. If I didn't have access to Sellers through the Internet I wouldn't know what I do Today. Yes, I have read a ton about how to fettle with tools, how to work the wood and so on. And I have practiced nd practiced and practiced. But when you try to learn by reading you can misunderstand things. You can get it all entirely wrong. And it will frustrate you until the point of desperation. The first saw I filed took me six or seven sessions to make it just about right. Had I seen a good video tutorial before I started working on that saw I'm sure I would have done a better job.
    I think it is important to understand that even though there are thousands of skilled woodworkers out there willingly providing tutorials and guides these people are not necessarily skilled in the techniques of teaching or able to understand the level of skills at the receiving end.
    It took me close to three years before I actually understood what people mean with a secondary bevel and on which side of the blade it should be.
    I'm a novice and will probably never become a very good woodworker. But I still get a lot of satisfaction and joy from this hobby. And I'm thankful that someone like Sellers is there to simplify things for me even if there might be more adequate methods available.
    In my mind Sellers is the only one who has dedicated himself to helping us poor and lowly souls who are not yet in the know to discover our possibilities and free ourselves from the burden of doubt.

  3. #18
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Israel
    Posts
    1,503
    Blog Entries
    1
    I'm really glad to see all these responses.


    Steve, your comment was not the first, but it was the one that finally got me thinking about this. I can understand how he comes off that way, I personally do not agree with some of his ways, for instance I think 38" is way too high for a bench, mine was 35" and now it's 33.5" and that feels just right. old German benches I've seen are around 34". but 38" works for him. the way he pulls the plane in that video to 'prove" that a high bench is fine does seems as if he is trying to say that his way it the best, but I actually take it as him showing and proving why he does it the way that he does, which I find to be a good thing as he has a reason for his decision. I never get the feeling that he is dishing other ways, he seems very open minded, but he believe is HIS way very much. the only thing I don't love is that he will set up circumstances in order to prove a point. like that video with the plane sharpened to 250grit.... he didn't say what "250" is, didn't show us the sharpening before hand, and he used pine for the demo. as friend of mine said "all that proves is that a dull blade can cut soft wood". lol.


    I have been one of those that fell far down the rabbit hole, buying expensive crap I don't need, and wasting precious time obsessing about stones and planes and types of steel and what not, only to discover in the end that the basics work beautifully and there is no No.4 plane that I know of that I would rather have that an old Stanley. king stones are fine also.. just messy.
    I "Blame" people like Rob Cosmen and the such for this, because they are not looking out for the best interest of newbies or advocating a healthy woodworking altitude, they are trying to sell overpriced IBC blades, Woodriver planes and such. Paul seller is the counter force, I can say for me he has helped me gain my sanity back.

  4. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Voigt View Post
    I think that Sellers learned most of his methods as a young man in the 1960s. People like to represent this as some sort of traditional apprenticeship, but it's not like he was working in an 18th century shop. The 60s were pretty much the nadir of the hand-tool woodworking darkness; it's like saying you learned quality control in Detroit in the 1970s. When I see the chisel-router trick that David mentioned, I think it's a neat trick, but it reminds me of that scene in Terminator where they're sitting in front of a TV, but they're using it as a fireplace. In the 20th century, so many traditional techniques and methods (like leg vises,to take just one example) were more or less abandoned; the chain was broken, except for a very few people who bothered to research the old ways. In the last 20 years, there's been a tremendous resurgence of people rediscovering these old techniques. But it doesn't seem to have affected Sellers at all;I think as far as he's concerned, he already knows it all and has nothing to learn from anyone else. I think if he really tried to understand, say a traditional Scandinavian-style or Roubo-style bench, he would have to admit they work better, but that will never happen. He's too invested in being a guru; it's how he makes his living.

    I'd also add that I agree with what Dave said in his post above. You can learn from reading books, watching some videos, and most of all practicing. There are no secrets, and almost all the information you need is free or pretty cheap, either on the web or from your local library. There's no need to pay $160 or whatever to gurus like Sellers, Cosman, etc.
    I think we're seeing some revisionist history here. At the time I learned woodworking, in the early 1970s, there were plenty of guys who knew how to use hand tools, and used them everyday on the job. Yes, in the world of hobbyists people bought into the post-WWII marketing of power tools as always better, but in the real world there wasn't any "broken chain" or need to research the old ways, guys were doing what they had been shown when they were young. Someone who apprenticed in the 1930s isn't that far removed from how things were done in the 19th century. That's the stuff that the current generation of gurus uses to give themselves credibility. Good new tools were hard to find, but there were people around who knew what they were doing. There are good reasons things have been done certain ways for centuries, and there are also usually good reasons when things are abandoned after being used for centuries. If your goal is to make nice stuff out of wood in a timely manner it isn't hard to figure out when new is better than old, or old is better than new.

    Bob Lang

  5. #20
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    DuBois, PA
    Posts
    1,897
    Since Kim just mentioned Swartz, he made a comment about people of SMC that could be taken as disparaging. It was in response to Mark Harrell tweet (twitter).
    If the thunder don't get you, the lightning will.

  6. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Matthew N. Masail View Post
    the only thing I don't love is that he will set up circumstances in order to prove a point. like that video with the plane sharpened to 250grit.... he didn't say what "250" is, didn't show us the sharpening before hand, and he used pine for the demo. as friend of mine said "all that proves is that a dull blade can cut soft wood". lol.
    That's the gimmick work I was referring to. There's a critical detail missing in that whole gimmick demo, I asked a question about it but got no answer. Was the iron stropped on anything? It's not hard to get geometric potential out of an iron when the wire edge is removed, even if the edge is rough. But if you leave what is effectively a fresh coarse/medium india edge on something with no removal of the wire edge, that's an entirely different situation.

    I wonder how many newbies took a coarse stone without understand what they were doing, tried to sharpen an iron with it and went with that (this coming from someone who's generally been sharpening with one stone lately).

    I don't think anyone should mistake the fact that sellers is getting paid, he's just not getting paid by selling tools, he's selling his school and classes instead.

    And the stuff about workbench height - nobody needs someone else to determine that for them. You can figure it out on your own far better than you can adopt someone else's desires. In a situation where you're making your first decision, the best thing to do is still go back to historical use of workbenches and find out where people had them relative to their height...especially if you're going to do more than chop dovetails and smooth boards that were prepared with power tools.

  7. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Lang View Post
    . If your goal is to make nice stuff out of wood in a timely manner it isn't hard to figure out when new is better than old, or old is better than new.

    Bob Lang
    In short, experience is what most people are lacking. People these days want to know what the solutions are before they know what their problems are. That's a good way to never "own" your own knowledge. Nobody likes to hear that what they need is some experience and repetition, though. They want the answer, and sometimes people want to know the answer without making the effort to think of what the question is.

  8. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Tony Zaffuto View Post
    he made a comment about people of SMC that could be taken as disparaging.
    That's OK, I can't see how his opinion matters much when we have access to professional craftsmen here, as opposed to hobbyist fumbling through "discoveries" of things that have been around for quite some time, or that anyone would figure out on their own just with some experience.
    Last edited by David Weaver; 08-01-2014 at 12:40 PM.

  9. #24
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Longview WA
    Posts
    27,347
    Blog Entries
    1
    I am another one of those who had no real training in woodworking. I have not done any great works like others in this boat, but I do enjoy what I have done.

    My family environment did teach me about things mechanical and watching my father use a saw it was something I picked up from that. Of course since getting involved on a deeper level I have learned a whole lot more.

    Some of the "secrets of woodworking" are repeated so often they kind of float by. Tage Frid often remarks about "sawing to the line" being an important skill. Everyone has heard this "secret." The trick is to understand the secret. Some misinterpret it into splitting the line. That takes a fat line and a thin saw.

    I explained it to my grandson a few days ago while showing him how to make dovetails. When marking the second piece, whether you do pins first or tails first, the line is outside of the waste. If the sawing is done right to the line, the joint will fit well. If the sawing takes some of the line the joint will be loose. If the sawing is done a hair away from the line the joint will be tight and maybe a little paring will be in order.

    So, back to Paul Sellers, he is a much more accomplished woodworker than me. I have actually only seen about three of his videos.

    One on his convex bevel method.

    One on only needing to sharpen a plane blade to a 250 grit.

    One on quick dovetails.

    If the convex bevel method works for you then fine. If stropping 30 strokes on each side of a blade works for you fine.

    For me my blades are sharpened and tested. I have found that for me using more than 5 strokes per side on the strop can round the edge. It may be my technique, but another "expert" also feels over stropping is not good.

    On the sharpening a plane blade to 250 grit being sufficient, it would have been better in my mind if he presented this as an exercise by having people try for themselves honing to different grits. As it is there are likely people claiming that is all that is needed because Paul Sellers said so.

    It is kind of like claiming the most important part of the plane is the blade and therefore buying a premium blade will correct all the problems of an improperly set up plane.

    Mr. Sellers video on quick dovetails appeared to be a sloppy satire on 5 minute dovetails. I do not think it imparted any information to help someone who may be having trouble making a dovetail joint.

    So, in my case, first impressions of Mr. Sellers may actually have been formed based on his three worst videos. It reminds me of working with another technician on my last job. He was being trained by someone with a lot of experience. One of our tasks was to adjust magnetic stripe readers in ticket machines. The specification was for them to be 0.005" above the roller. One trainee from the shift before mine was always setting them tight against the roller and causing the roller to wear out prematurely. When I met up with the two of them one day I brought up the problem I was having with worn rollers and asked the experienced tech to show the new tech how to set the heads a little looser. He jokingly said,"no, you want those as tight as you can so they squeeze out all the information from the ticket." The new tech took this seriously and I ended up having to follow after the new guy and readjust the magnetic heads on everything he worked on or replace rollers. My level of respect for the experienced tech dropped significantly after that day.

    There are many ways to get to an end in woodworking. We are all free to choose the way that gets us where we are going. If one leader takes you down a path that works for you then it doesn't matter what others think of them.

    Some of us like to have a minimum of tools. That is great.

    Some of us can not resist buying another homely Stanley/Bailey #4 to put on the shelf with the other #4s. That is also fine.

    I like using a single flat bevel on most of my blades. It works for me.

    Some like a hollow grind (by the way I do). That is great if you have the grinder set up to hollow grind your blades.

    Some like a secondary bevel. Some like a tertiary bevel. Ain't no skin off my back.

    Some cut tails first others cut pins first. Who am I to argue with what works for you?

    Schwarz seems to leave some ticked off. I find some of his stuff of interest.

    Heck, even some of the stuff Sellers does has information that has value to me.

    What is the old story about even the fool can say something wise and useful. One just has to be able to glean the good and discard the useless.

    jtk
    Last edited by Jim Koepke; 08-01-2014 at 12:59 PM.
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  10. #25
    I like Paul's stuff -good approach as a teacher and has a very simple and encouraging tone/method for getting folks started working wood. I think the condescension of whether his or someone else's method is the best/right way is rather a moot point. Sure, he can be dogmatic at times, but so are many of the folks here advocating their own methods. Try it and see. If you like it, stick in your toolbox, if not, move on and get over it. If you feel that your way is superior, then why not put it out there for others to try. In that vein, I enjoy reading Derek Cohen's blog and posts as well.

  11. #26
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    DuBois, PA
    Posts
    1,897
    Quote Originally Posted by David Weaver View Post
    That's OK, I can't see how his opinion matters much when we have access to professional craftsmen here, as opposed to hobbyist fumbling through "discoveries" of things that have been around for quite some time, or that anyone would figure out on their own just with some experience.

    alluded to us not knowing we're about to saw into our "nether" regions!
    If the thunder don't get you, the lightning will.

  12. #27
    I had to look up what he's talking about. I saw sitting down like that, but not quite so awkwardly.

    It looks like someone else was taking a shot at Schwarz and he retweeted it, unless whoever was tweeting it to him said something as satire. Who knows, I'm not a twitterhead, or whatever a person reading twitter would be called.
    Last edited by David Weaver; 08-01-2014 at 1:53 PM.

  13. #28
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Dickinson, Texas
    Posts
    7,655
    Blog Entries
    1
    Look at all of the free advertising Paul is getting from you guys.

    He has to love it.

  14. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by lowell holmes View Post
    Look at all of the free advertising Paul is getting from you guys.

    He has to love it.
    I think we've called it "drawing heat" in prior discussions, like the heel wrestler used to do in pro wrestling. Make the old ladies mad so that they will buy a ticket to your wrestling show to have the chance at swinging their purse at you when you run down the aisle (otherwise known as, get people to pay for seats any way you can). I think I drew some heat for calling it huckstering.

    Gimmick is also a term I stole from pro wrestling.

  15. #30
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    DuBois, PA
    Posts
    1,897
    Quote Originally Posted by David Weaver View Post
    I had to look up what he's talking about. I saw sitting down like that, but not quite so awkwardly.

    It looks like someone else was taking a shot at Schwarz and he retweeted it, unless whoever was tweeting it to him said something as satire. Who knows, I'm not a twitterhead, or whatever a person reading twitter would be called.
    I may be a bit more thin skinned that I took offense. Chris has helped the newbie hobby side, but give me a guy like Sellers, Our own George and a host of other less vocal people that have real substance.
    If the thunder don't get you, the lightning will.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •